Brunswick School cream of the crop for the second year in a row in School Vege Challenge

Brunswick School won the 2023 Springvale Garden Centre School Vege Challenge. Photo / Bevan Conley

For the second year in a row, Brunswick School has won the Springvale Garden Centre School Vege Challenge.

The third edition of the challenge, run in conjunction with the Whanganui Chronicle, had 22 schools across the Whanganui area take part, with half of those schools taking part for the first time.

Schools which entered had supplies to construct and grow their garden delivered to them by the garden centre at the start of the year.

Judging of the schools’ gardens began in June, with awards split into six categories.

As well as Brunswick having the highest overall score, they also won the carrot growing and best-looking garden categories.

Brunswick School teacher Beth Berry said it was a surprise the school scored the top spot again after winning in 2022.

Brunswick is a member of Enviroschools so they had started their garden years before the first challenge, but she said the garden centre’s support had been great as a way to continue developing it.

“It kind of kick starts us at the beginning of the year when the garden’s got a bit weedy over summer,” Berry said.

Berry said when she started the garden only two kids in her class were willing to get their hands dirty, but now all but one of her kids worked in the garden.

The entire school was involved with tending to the garden, with the seniors managing the lavender portion of the garden and the school’s other four classes getting a quarter each.

The school also has its own greenhouse, a self-seeding poppy field, a worm farm and a compost pile.

Recently Berry’s students harvested broccoli from the garden, the heads of which were as large as their heads.

Growing the produce changed some of the students’ minds about the vegetable.

“I didn’t like broccoli I thought, but then I had it for the first time and I liked the stalks and my mum was very proud of me,” Beau Jackson said.

“I like gardening because I like harvesting the broccoli and the vegetables and getting to take them home to cook whatever you want with them,” Harry Brunt said.

Brunswick School's vegetable garden. Photo / Bevan Conley

Surplus produce from the garden also gets put in the school’s Koha Shed.

“A lot of it goes into the koha shed and the parents take it and leave a donation ... it’s a great thing,” Berry said.

Members of the community often also dropped off produce they had at home, such as feijoas in the summer.

She said the kids absolutely loved the garden and the best thing it had done was show them where vegetables came from.

“Four or five years ago kids thought carrots came from the supermarket, and some of them now are gardening at home with their parents, whereas before it was a mum and dad thing.

“It’s garden-to-table stuff, teaching life skills,” she said.

For the People’s Choice category, Hunterville School won the public vote, with Mosston School coming runner-up.

Across the other categories, Faith City School won in Theatre and Presentation, St Johns Hill School won in Broccoli Growing and Whanganui Intermediate School won in Seed Sewing.

The winners of each category won $80 worth of garden products, and the runners-up won $50 worth of products.

With the competition now over, Springvale Garden Centre general manager Gareth Carter said the prizes would fund the schools continuing to develop their gardens further.

“It’s going back to the whole core aim of getting kids to garden and grow their own food, where that comes from and gaining the benefit to their physical health and mental health,” he said.

The centre would examine what went well with this year’s challenge and what could be improved and look to come back better for next year.

Finn Williams is a multimedia journalist for the Whanganui Chronicle. He joined the Chronicle in early 2022 and regularly covers stories about business, events and emergencies. He also enjoys writing opinion columns on whatever interests him.