Geraldton community garden inspires students

On a hot Wednesday morning, a group of junior students from Geraldton Flexible Learning Centre visited the community garden inside the complex on Fitzgerald Street. The young people introduced themselves and settled into chairs under the shade structure in the middle of the garden. It was a great retreat from the heat. Once everyone was comfortable, I had a yarn with them about my passion for gardening and shared some of the things I had learned over the years from interviewing gardeners and working in this community garden. As I was talking, something distracted one of the students — Albert. In the middle of the table was a strange-looking fruit. A couple of the boys recognised it and called out: “Hey, that’s a dragon fruit.” I said: “Take it if you like. John Hood gave me some of those last week.” The students wandered through the garden. Albert proved to be an expert who named each plant. “That’s sweet potato, that’s a passionfruit vine. Over there is a fig tree, that’s parsley and that’s corn,” he said. He identified most of the plants and sampled some grapes, figs and the parsley. Danika Sharpe, the classroom teacher, steered attention to the purpose of the visit. “The students have some questions for you, Stan, as we’re setting up a school vegetable garden,” she said. After I showed the young people a little mango tree that had randomly grown from some compost containing a mango seed, Tyrell asked, “Can we grow mangoes at this time of the year?” “So, yes, you can grow mangoes at this time of the year,” I said. Each young person helped plant some cauliflower seedlings. Devlin and Tyrell carefully watered the seedlings. They were impressed with the irrigation set-up installed in the garden — this is a fantastic time saver. The highlight of the morning was watching a demonstration of a Ph tester to assess the quality of the soil for vegetables. We mixed a small amount of soil from a garden bed onto a plastic tray and added the liquid to make a little mud cake mix. We then added the prepared dye as the young people watched the soil change colour. The group concluded the soil was in a “moderate” condition. The community garden has a collection of heritage seeds, more than we will ever use, so it was good to be able to offer them some to take back to their school. The young people left feeling inspired and excited about starting their own garden at school. Each young person shook my hand and thanked me for sharing my time and knowledge. It had been a good morning all round. Fred from the City of Greater Geraldton rang and asked if I would like to look at the City’s new community garden in Mitchell Street. On March 29 they are having a handover event. Fred says the garden is a great success, so I’m look forward to sharing the project with you. I’ve also had a call from a gardener keen to show me his giant tomato plant. Gardens are great, and if you are in isolation because of the COVID-19 virus, what better place to spend your time?