Paekākāriki School gears up for annual garden and car boot sale to support gardening programme

Students and volunteers preparing for the plant sale: (standing, from left) Arlo Delahunty-Versteegh, Sally Heppenstall, Anne Melville, Trish Sarr, Judy Dickie, Fred Kennedy-Martel, Robyn White and Shona Fokerd; (sitting, from left) Leo Albertson, Zebedee King Bruce Miller and Misha Godden-McMullen. Photo / Grace Odlum

Several years ago, Paekākāriki School created a nursery to help fund its gardening programme - and today it’s still going strong.

The school is preparing for its garden and car boot sale over Mother’s Day weekend.

Sales from the event will benefit the school’s gardening programme, which has children up to Year 6 working in the school gardens and learning about things such as growing their own food and pest control.

The school garden is maintained by a group of volunteers called the Potty Potters, who have also been preparing the plants for sale.

Volunteer Sally Heppenstall said they would have a range of plants for sale, including natives, herbs, houseplants, succulents and more.

The sale is one of two garden sales the school has each year, raising about $20,000 in total.

Teacher aide and head of the school’s gardening programme Raima Kingi said the programme was about building relationships with papatūānuku [the land].

One of the ways the school has done that is by planting a medicinal forest that also acts as a bird food corridor.

Some of the plants that will be for sale. Photo / Grace Odlum

Kingi said there was an existing bird food corridor that came from Mackay’s Crossing and started towards Paekākāriki, and the goal was to connect it with their new one.

The school had also planted lots of flax, which Kingi said would be 1.8-2m tall when it was fully grown.

She said the flax had calming properties and would be beneficial for the children’s mental health too.

They are also planting pick buckets around the school, so the children have access to fresh food.

“You can’t assume that every kid’s house has food in it.”

The garden and car boot sale will take place on Saturday, May 11 at Paekākāriki School.