Animals and Permaculture
Term 3 Permaculture
The Templestowe College Permaculture Farm and Garden program has been an absolute delight to be part of this semester.
We’re seeing dozens of committed, engaged students coming early to class, keen to chat with Petra, Meg and myself about their own gardens at home or whatever passion project they’re currently pouring their energy into.
This semester has centered on two units: “Obtain a Yield” and “Food and Fibre”
“Obtain a Yield” is one of the most valuable and rewarding parts of the program. Students form small groups (or fly solo) and choose a plot in the Permaculture garden that becomes their own for the semester. They collaborate, design, research and plan out their planting, then raise their seedlings using seeds saved by previous classes. It’s one of our favourite parts of the whole program — a genuinely circular process where one generation of “Permablitzers” passes their legacy on to the next. That’s what permaculture is all about: sustaining our beautiful planet for more people, and more life, to enjoy.
Students tend their seedlings in the greenhouse over the cooler months, keeping them warm and watered, before transplanting them out into their plots as spring arrives — carefully following companion planting charts so everything grows well together. From there, it’s ongoing maintenance: weeding, watering and feeding, all building towards a yield at semester’s end, when we come together for a big harvest feast.
“Food and Fibre” invites students to take on a personal permaculture passion project — something they want to get better at, get more deeply engaged with, and that helps themselves, their family or our community.
The range of projects has been wide and wonderful. Students are weaving baskets, harvesting bamboo to make succulent pots for market, and turning fruit into jams, preserves and fruit leather. Others have been pressing flowers and four-leaf clovers found in the garden and are now building their own flower presses in the woodworking area. A masterclass from Lee, our Design Tech teacher, showed students how to carve spoons from apple and olive prunings — and now many are crafting their own spoons, ladles and bowls using age-old techniques.
Elsewhere in the garden: students are building new handles for old tools, weaving bamboo garden edging, natural dyeing, creating prayer gardens for their own backyards, hatching and raising chickens, carving bamboo, pruning fruit trees, and building wellbeing spaces — including sanding and building a park bench from scratch. Some have been lifting and dividing dahlia bulbs for “guerrilla planting” around the school, so summer will bring bursts of colour in unexpected spots. Others are cultivating bush tucker gardens, baking with mandarins and garden produce, making flower bouquets and found-object artwork, or running tea-tasting events exploring how herbal plants support gut health and wellbeing.
So many projects, so much going on — all underpinned by a strong sense of care for each other, for our community, and for the natural world.
And if you throw in the group experiences we had including making spanakopita, wood fired pizzas, scones, garlic bread, making jams, sugar cane slurping, mint and lemon cordial... the list goes on!
Thank you to all the parents who’ve shared your knowledge and skills with us this term. We’re proud to be equipping these students with skills that won’t just serve them in life, but that they’ll carry forward to the generations who follow.
