The edible Garden at the Parndana Campus reached a milestone last week with the harvesting of its first crop of herbs and vegetables by the Years 4-7 classes. The garden is being used as a teaching and learning experience for students, who will have the responsibility of caring for the plants and preparing produce for sale on a weekly basis to Southern Ocean Lodge.

“The Lodge was so impressed by the quality, they have offered to purchase everything we can produce,” Parndna head of campus Steve Bennett said.

The students are also using the fresh vegetables for weekly cooking lessons, learning basic skills in food preparation and healthy eating.

School pastoral support person Deidre Morrison has taken a leading role overseeing this project along with the aquaponics hot house. The hot house has undergone a major upgrade so it can mass-produce quality herbs (chives, basil and laksa mint) along with selected vegetables.

Southern Ocean Lodge is also buying these products on a weekly basis along with barramundi from the Skill Centre, where manager Nic Tremaine hopes to be able to increase weekly fish orders during the busy tourist period over summer.

“The school is very appreciative for the support and encouragement of Southern Ocean lodge in supporting us with all of these enterprises, Mr Bennett said.