by Luke Voogt
Newtown’s mini green thumbs are getting excited about planting new lime, lemon and orange trees at Fyans Park Primary School, according to teacher Jodie Thomson.
“We’ve got tomatoes, beans, corn, snow peas and the massive Russian sunflowers with the big heads on them,” she said.
“The kids have even shown interest outside of school growing veggies at their own homes and at their grandparents’.”
The school’s younger students were preparing to plant the fruit trees this week as the newest addition to their garden, Jodie said.
“The idea of that is to try to educate them about keeping a plant alive and picking what it produces.”
The youngsters began planting earlier this year after the school won a $170,000 State Government grant for the garden and to install 268 solar panels.
“Within the first month of them being installed and in operation, we don’t pay for power anymore,” Jodie said.
“The plan is that in future the surrounding members of the community will be able to access that power.”
The school’s proposal for the two projects beat dozens of other entries in last year’s Pick My Project vote for community initiatives.
The kids had also collected bars and bicycle wheels to help grow plants, and fabric and materials for scarecrow ‘Curly Shirley’.
“She’s very colourful!” Jodie said.
“Because we are a sustainable school we have upcycled some things in the garden. Our brilliant parent community also donated a lot of seeds and seedlings to the garden.”
