The enormous kumara grown by pupils taking part in Howick Primary School’s Garden to Table programme is clear evidence they know what they’re doing.
Nearby are about a dozen vegetable gardens filled with silverbeet, spinach, carrots, various herbs, mint, parsley, thyme, oregano, sage, spring onion, kale, bok choy and lettuce.
“The kids really love pulling up the carrots,” says Beccy Long, the school’s Enviro teacher and Garden to Table leader.
“It’s a nationwide programme teaching children how to grow their own herbs and vegetables.
‘The kaupapa (principle) is to grow, harvest, prepare and share.
“Once they’ve grown them they have to learn about the process of nurturing and composting and we harvest them and use that produce to cook in the kitchen.
“We tend to have half a class in the kitchen cooking and half a class out here in the garden.
“At the end of the session they all go down and eat whatever they’ve cooked.”
On the day the Times visited the pupils working away in the kitchen were preparing broccoli and cheese fritters, rhubarb and apple muffins, and chocolate ‘bliss balls’.
The programme is run at the school with support from volunteer David Mallowes, who says the whopping kumara the pupils have grown would be worth at least $8 each if sold in a shop.
“The biggest learning for me has been how much the kids enjoy it,” he says.
He estimates about 30 per cent of the pupils involved come from families who grow vegetables at home.
Long says the programme connects to the school’s zero-waste projects and teaching about wrapper-free snacks and waste-minimisation.
“It’s in its fourth year and in that time we’ve learnt how to grow kumara and ginormous pumpkins.
“The kids have learnt a lot about composting and they absolutely love it.
“We do it with all of our year 5 and 6 pupils.
“What we’ve found is it’s really popular and some of the children can’t wait to be in year 5 and 6 because they desperately want to do it.
“This year as everyone is so keen I’ll give everyone in the school two sessions.”
Among the keen pupils loving the programme are Oskar Hartmann, David Agams, and Love-Haven Ioka Alai.
“I love how they teach us about the plants,” Oskar says.
“We interact with everything here. It’s so much fun to see those full-grown plants pop out of the ground.”
David says it’s fun to learn how to compost and use the garden tools while Love-Haven – while gripping a handful of carrots – proudly says she’s learnt “how to pull these bad boys out”.
