By Casey Neill
A school garden is growing great guns thanks to wicking beds.
Athol Road Primary installed the new planters just over five weeks ago and students harvested a huge vegie hall on Thursday 26 April.
Teacher Bryan Hunter said he filled a water reservoir at the base of the wicking bed container, similar to a self-watering pot.
“This eliminates the need for surface watering where a lot of that water evaporates anyway especially during the summer months,” he said.
“This also helps to stop weeds establishing on the surface of the beds.”
Greater Dandenong Council provided a grant for the project, and the school matched it.
“We were able to purchase 76 of the wicking bed containers which are connected in groups of about 20,” Mr Hunter said.
“After five weeks from the installation and setup, we are now ready to harvest from many of the wicking beds, which has been much quicker than many of our other growing methods.”
The project added to the school’s agricultural program, which included no-dig gardens, vertical gardens, aquaponic gardens, fruit orchards and a greenhouse.
Mr Hunter said the wicking beds allowed the school to grow produce through the holidays because it only needed filling about every two weeks.
“Currently we sell all school produce at a weekly market along with our chicken and duck eggs and plants that students propagate in our greenhouse,” he said.
“With the increased output of produce from the wicking beds we are hoping to use more at school in cooking sessions for students.”
