School contest hopes to make early start on growing next generation of Whanganui gardeners

Springvale Garden Centre general manager Gareth Carter. Photo / Finn Williams

The Springvale Garden Centre hopes to start developing children’s green thumbs early as their School Vege Challenges comes back for its third year.

The centre’s general manager, Gareth Carter, said the ultimate goal of the contest is to keep the schools’ gardens going past the competition and to get kids into gardening early in life, which is why they’re including more supplies in the starter kit this year.

“We’ve really stacked more and more into the starter kit as opposed to prizes, so therefore everybody is on a reasonably good playing field to start off with,

“The aim [is] to teach kids gardening rather than win a prize, the real prize is the people participating and learning,” he said.

If the kids taking part learned these skills early, they’d be able to keep using them later in life, Carter said.

“If they’ve learnt it when they’re in primary school or secondary school then they can carry on doing it if they’re in a flat situation later on or if they’re in their own home with their own family.”

On top of this, he said gardening was a great way for them to become more economically conscious and improve their mental health.

“Many people just find [gardening] therapeutic ... when you’re outside planting and you can hear the birds singing and you’ll see some worms and you’ll see insect life and there’s a connection with life that’s healthy and de-stresses the brain in a busy world.”

The contest is open to all primary, intermediate and secondary schools within a 20km radius of Whanganui.

Registrations for the competition are open now and will close on February 3, just before school starts.

Entries to the competition will be judged on six categories — carrot growing, broccoli growing, innovation and theatre, best-looking garden, seed sowing, and the people’s choice award, with the overall winner being the school that scored the most points combined in those categories.

The winners of each category would receive $80 of garden products and the runners-up would get $50 of products.

Last year 16 schools entered the contest, and Carter was hoping for 20 to take part this year.

The challenge is sponsored by Yates NZ, Zelandia Horticulture, Eastown Timber, Tui Garden Products, Egmont Commercial, and Ican.

More information on the competition and an entry form can be found on the garden centre’s website by clicking on the “School Vege Challenge” button at the top right corner of the screen.