Fund a Sustainable School Vegetable Garden

Dear Supporters, 

The aim of the project is to ensure that every child has access to a healthy, balanced meal each school day to boost their energy, increase their concentration and improve their academic performance.

The overall objective is to implement a kitchen garden at Navunisea Primary school which will be run by the mother’s group. The aim of the “School Canteen Project” is to ensure that the students receive an nutritional meal at lunch time, plus to educate and capacity train the mothers club who are responsible for all lunch time meals on school days on nurturing seeds, planting sustainably, fertilizing, and maintaining the vegetable plot.

GVI Trust aligns with local government “National Food and Nutrition Policy for Schools” that promote a healthier environment in schools, to ensure a healthier future for the children of Fiji.  There is an urgent need to promote and encourage good nutrition in schools. Good nutrition empowers people to reach their full potential and is a key foundation for the sustainable development of human health. In Fiji’s rural communities, people consume enough quantities of starchy staple foods like potatoes, cassava, taro, rice but insufficient quantities of protein, oils, dairy, fruits and vegetables that make up a balanced diet.

We have started to implement the first stage of this project: to create a kitchen garden in Navunisea Primary School. GVI has recruited an agriculture intern, Nanise who has been responsible for managing the Silana nursery and kitchen garden in Silana and Navunisea Primary School. The seed sowing process begins with planting seedlings in the nursery, which is located in the nearby village of Silana, while the seeds are staring to grow the next step was to get the area designated by the school to be the garden ready for planting .The area has been dug over and compost added to the soil, the second job was to construct a shade house which will be used to grow vegetables that need to be protected from the strong sunrays i.e. tomatoes peppers. This has now been completed and is waiting for the seedlings to move in once they are strong enough to be planted into the ground.   

Construction of a fence to protect the kitchen garden was necessary as village livestock (cattle and chicken) have entered the kitchen garden damaging the crops presenting unexpected challenges.

The kitchen garden project aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages.  There is a relationship between good nutrition and education. The kitchen garden will provide for attractive, tasty, nutritious meals that complement the students learning.  Community engagement of community members and focusing on the mother group will increase knowledge of backyard gardening and how to implement family kitchen gardens to achieve adequate household food security ensuring all families have access to healthy meals.  Healthy meals will lead to healthy families and a healthy Dawasamu.  

Kitchen garden initiatives were recognised by government on World Food Day.  Observing the theme “Eating Healthy Matters” and supporting that food is a basic and a fundamental human right Nanise presented to five key guests, on undertaking backyard gardening and demonstrate how caregivers can start their own vegetable garden to better supply nutritious meals for the family.

The kitchen garden report provides detailed description of the ongoing project.

KITCHEN GARDEN REPORT

Planning and organising of kitchen garden project implemented in the Silana nursery was carried out appropriately even though changes and challenges occurred but this does not distract the vision to achieve the best garden and achieving sustainable household food security for Silana and nutritional initiatives supported by local government.

Implementation of the kitchen garden includes composting.

The process of composting consists of using a composting bin.  This bin is filled with raw fruit and vegetable peelings and eggshells, as the decomposition process happens, this material is turned over once a week until it breakdowns to soil.

It takes approximately six weeks to become soil.  This soil is used for seed sowing and planting using a mixture that contains 50% soil from ground and 50% from composting soil.  

June to July 

8 varieties of vegetable seeds (noted in the table below) was prepared for seed sowing, transplanting of seedlings to the pots, weeding and tilling of soil with the help of GVI volunteers.  Maintaining and management of the nursery was great as seed raising mix compost and watering was done for the growth of seedling.

August 

Seedlings are ready for transplanting to the field. Field preparation and management was done so the plants grows well. Changes detected after 3 weeks for 1) cabbage this was due from the redness of the soil it makes the plant changes in colour, not growing well and have flowers at the early stage. 2) Head lettuce in the nursery was not properly formed, due to heavy rain and the soil makes the taste different.

September and October

Harvesting from the first planting done and 2nd attempt of planting.

Eggplant – yielded two bundles worth.

Tomato – yielded six tomatoes 

Things to consider

• Weather (long heavy rainfall can damage the growth and formation of plants and dry season watering is important.)
• Type of soil (plants and taste will be spoiled)
• Domestic animals/birds (transplanting and direct planting method could be interrupted if not properly fenced

Thank you for your continued support! 

All the best, 

Kitchen Garden Team

Links:

• Website