Our Lady of the Rosary, Caloundra is sponsored by Queensland Gambling Community Benefit Fund. 

July 2009 sees the start of the Edible School Gardens program at Our Lady of the Rosary.  First it we had a meeting with teachers and interested parents to discuss the commitment  required for the program to be successful and an overview of the year.  Initially only 5 classes can be involved, so a decision had to be made as to who would be the lucky ones. 

Over July and August the students learnt about Permaculture design and a final design evolved.  I believe that the whole program is students focused as it is their garden and their food, not mine.  In their design they wanted a love heart in memory of one of their teachers that recently died,  and to remember others that had died.  They also wanted the shapes O L and R representing there school and a wave shape garden, representing living near the ocean which is important in our design to catch and store the nutrients from the higher gardens.  These are just some of the examples of the final design.

September was very busy with one week between the finalised design, done by the students and collecting all the products for set up day, remembering that our Edible School Gardens are an 'instant garden make-over' all done in one day with the students and the wider school community.

Often pre-set up can be very stressful trying to bring everything together, but one this occasion, via our email group communications, I had one the funniest, light-hearted weeks and what a credit that is to the school community to have such a friendly supportive team.  On set up day they had organised coffee at 7.30am for the earlier starters and there wonderful tuckshop ladies cooked us (40+ people) a healthy morning tea and lunch and provided cool drinks for us. 

Set up day was wonderful, it felt like a whole of friends had come around and helped their kids with a project.  We all worked hard with the students all day and finished everything by the end of the day (shed and watertank being installed during the holidays).  You can watch the day, see the time-lapse on this page.

Term 4, we have got our seedlings and herbs in and now look forward to a harvest day later in the term.  The students are learning all about composting and why it is so important.  They have discovered that cane toads can be a positive addition to our garden!!!!! 

It has been an extremely hot, windy and dry term, so the students have been busy, along with some Dads, working out some ways to reduce the heat stress from our baby seedlings and seeds.