Edible Gardens
Fruit and vegetable growing can give students a better understanding of where our food comes from. It can assist students to develop skills in gardening, which may not be available at home. School vegetable gardens have also been very successful in motivating children to eat and try more fruit and vegetables for example in one school all the vegetables, even the radishes, are eaten before reaching full size.
A number of schools have had success with their gardens - some have been gardening as a school community for years. You can see some of these gardens in the school case studies section. However, some schools have experienced or envisaged difficulties in caring for the gardens during weekends and holidays. Similarly, problems have been experienced with maintaining worm farms during holidays. In an effort to tackle some of these problems, we have enclosed some problem solving strategies that other schools have tried. See tackling obstacles at school 
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Teachers can read about how to incorporate gardening into the curriculum in the blooming ideas for schools section. The Nursery Industry Association and the Horticultural Industry of Australia have written an excellent section regarding the safety and health aspects of gardening at school in safe, healthy gardening (262.80 Kb). We have included direct links to excellent “how to do it” sections for example, worm farms provided by the Environment Protection Agency of Australia. We have written a gardening guide (234.10 Kb) to help you chose vegetables and fruits to plant in you garden and some tips for getting good quality food with minimal effort. For more classroom fun ideas, check out bean sprouts (326.52 Kb), bean sprout hairy heads (307.51 Kb) and more gardening activities for kids. If you’re still looking for more examples of how vegetable and fruit gardens work in schools, see our general web links section.
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