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Words and pictures: Kris McCarthy, 24 Carrot’s Northern Program Manager

Many of our school gardens contain olive trees, and we love them for their hardiness, beauty and shade- and of course for their wintertime crop of olives! Garden specialists and students wondered- do we have enough olives to make olive oil? To find out, I partnered with our north and northwest school garden specialists in a first-time experiment for 24 Carrot- a school garden rev-OIL-ution- to combine the olive harvest- because we’re OIL in this together!

A huge harvesting effort from some of our north and northwestern schools to harvest, process, bottle and taste their very own olive oil!

Thanks to a grant from the State Government’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment, this year we have been able to offer students from our 24 Carrot schools waste minimisation workshops.

Each workshop day comprises three, hour-long activities that students move through in small groups of 6-8, before coming together to share a fresh, seasonal meal they have helped to cook. The focus is fun, hands-on, interdisciplinary learning that embodies key ideas about waste minimisation and sustainability.

Our school workshops this year have been themed around waste minimisation with activities such as composting, keep cup making, cooking with 'scraps' and much much more! Here is a little snapshot from our team on the ground.

We are in the depths of winter here in Lutruwita / Tasmania and if you have planned your garden well, you may have a delicious hoard of pumpkins that are helping you eat well through to Spring. And if you don’t, you may notice pumpkin prices being a little cheaper in the shops. So, it’s the time to get pumpkin cooking! 

In case you need some pumpkin recipe inspiration, we thought we would share a few being made in our 24 Carrot Garden schools and the Material Institute Kitchen. A quick and easy pumpkin soup from one of our schools, a pumpkin vegge fritter recipe and to shake things up, a pumpkin pancake recipe from chef Vlad! Bon Appetite! 🎃

You may have a delicious hoard of pumpkins that are helping you eat well through to spring. And if you don’t, you may notice pumpkin prices being a little cheaper in the shops. So it’s the time to get pumpkin cooking!

Earlier this year we celebrated the opening of the new 24 Carrot Garden at Ravenswood Heights Primary School in Launceston. Designed in collaboration with landscape architects Inspiring Place, and the school community, the garden is a state of the art, purpose built outdoor learning hub where students will grow, harvest, cook and share nutritious seasonal food. It features the tallest sunflowers we have ever seen, a beautiful arbor for future grape vines, raised garden beds for accessibility and a great compost setup!

Reuben Parker-Greer, 24 Carrot Garden Operations Manager says: ‘The completion of the Ravenswood Heights 24 Carrot Garden is an exciting occasion! It is a living learning resource for the school. Bringing the lessons of health, art and sustainability to life through growing, harvesting and feasting on fresh seasonal produce. In the 24 Carrot Gardens program we embrace inquiry and enjoyment while equipping young people with practical skills, positive habits and an appetite for lifelong learning.’

Earlier this year we celebrated the opening of the new 24 Carrot Garden at Ravenswood Heights Primary School in Launceston. Designed in collaboration with landscape architects Inspiring Place, and the school community...

In April we opened our long awaited Material Institute Kitchen onsite at our home in Kutalayna/Bridgewater. This has been many years in the making and with the support of the Tasmanian Community Fund we now have a purpose built commercial learning kitchen! This kitchen will enable us to cook everything on site for our Material Institute community events and school workshops we host every term. Our chef Vlad is grinning ear to ear to say the least!

Amelia Clifford, Material Institute Relationships Manager says: ‘Having a dedicated teaching kitchen for our chef will allow us to expand and elevate our hands-on food education opportunities. An immersive approach in a professional kitchen will be more impactful through first hand participant experience of the seed-to-plate journey, harvesting food from the gardens only metres away. This ultimately promotes food security and well-being while coming together in a beautiful space.’

In April we opened our long awaited Material Institute Kitchen at our home in Kutalayna/Bridgewater. This has been many years in the making and with the support of the Tasmanian Community Fund we now have a purpose built commercial learning kitchen!

‘You are welcome in the kitchen and garden no matter who you are in the school.’ 
— Student, Clarendon Vale Primary

At 24 Carrot Gardens, we have always believed that kitchen gardens are transformative for learning and wellbeing — this is at the heart of what we do. A new report by the University of Tasmania (UTAS) affirms what we’ve felt and observed since the program’s inception, showing that 24 Carrot Gardens grows practical skills and food literacy, with a wide range of social and educational benefits. In addition to learning about healthy eating and sustainability, students’ attendance is improved, they are building confidence, and forming stronger connections with their families and communities.

At 24 Carrot Gardens, we have always believed that kitchen gardens are transformative for learning and wellbeing — this is at the heart of what we do. A new report by the University of Tasmania now shares compelling evidence to support this!

So you’re enjoying your tomato harvest, slicing them up with some fresh basil and relishing in all the flavours of summer, and we want to talk about winter crops? Yes, that’s right, we do! We want to bust the myth that food growing and harvesting is a summer activity. Our Kitchen Garden program runs all year round and with some strategic planning we’re able to yield bountiful crops all year, allowing the seed to plate experience to continue in schools throughout the winter months. 

So what’s the secret to tending a pumping garden in winter? Reuben, our 24 Carrot Gardens Operations Manager, asked two of our Garden Specialists, Jimmy Corrigan and Kachina Lucas, what their top tips are for winter gardening.

Jimmy and Kachina have years of experience behind them. Jimmy has been working in horticulture for more than 10 years and has been with 24 Carrot Gardens for over 2 years, working at Bayview Secondary College and Kingston High School. Kachina grew up in a community where everyone grew their own food, and went on to run a market garden before joining 24 Carrot Gardens over 2 years ago. Like Jimmy, Kachina has been working across 2 different schools, Bayview Secondary College and Clarendon Vale Primary School.

While your friends are at the beach this summer, consider spending a little time tending to your garden while dreaming of a winter full of abundance! 

Yes it’s summer, but we want to talk about your winter garden!

We brought our school workshops back to our home base at Material Institute’s ‘Botanical’ in Bridgewater, Tasmania for the second half of 2024, offering students hands-on experiences in the kitchen, clay studio, and our Beauty Lab.

Our Southern Primary School Coordinator, Sarah ‘Sharky’ Betts, helps to organise these excursions with our participating primary schools. After the bus arrives, Sharky gathers everyone together for an Acknowledgement of Country and a site safety induction before organising the students into groups for the three activities.

In the pop-up kitchen with our chef Vlad, students learn essential cooking techniques, with each group contributing to a different component of the day’s shared meal. The menu this term featured Vietnamese rice paper rolls, soba noodle salad, and crispy Korean pancakes. Many hands were chopping and wrapping all day to create the vibrant, delicious rainbow lunch.

“I learned that if you're cutting a capsicum that you have to use the fists, like you have to claw it so you don’t cut your fingers.” 

— Maisey, Clarendon Vale Primary School

In the clay studio, there’s always a calm, focused energy as students shape their own mugs, carefully sculpting handles, rims, and decorative details. Our Ceramic Artist, Georgie bisque-fires, glazes, and re-fires each piece before returning them to students as a tangible reminder of their creativity and a functional keepsake they can cherish for years to come.

“My favourite activity was pottery because you could make whatever you want and I liked making the mug. I made an octopus ... I was in the first cooking group. We did the rice paper rolls. I tried them at lunch time, I liked it but my favourite part of lunch was probably the noodles.  I hadn’t tried them before and I hadn’t tried the avocado. It was good!” 

We offer students hands-on experiences in the kitchen, clay studio, and our Beauty Lab.

Last year we celebrated an amazing milestone coming into our 10th year of operation. While this is an immense achievement it highlights some realities; most 24 Carrot Gardens in southern primary schools share the same age (roughly 10 years old). We want to ensure that our legacy schools continue to be in full bloom now and into the future. 

With this in mind we made the decision to upgrade the design and infrastructure of these older gardens, designing and tailoring to each school’s needs with our 10 years of learnings in mind. These learnings include looking at the kitchen garden as a living classroom. Through this lens we have brought in a few practicalities that enable the Garden Specialists, who are crucial in delivering the 24 Carrot program, to spend their time educating students rather than maintaining a garden that is always on the cusp of a weed takeover.  

We want to ensure that our legacy schools continue to be in full bloom now and into the future. 

We checked in to see how our school gardens and kitchens were going now spring is blooming! If you need any gardening and cooking inspiration, then you have come to the right place. There is some incredible produce and deliciousness being cooked up all around the state in our 24 Carrot Garden schools!

At Springfield Gardens Primary School, our Kitchen Specialist Kate, has been cooking cabbage, broccoli, silverbeet, radish and carrot Okonomiyaki with nori seaweed and carrot noodles with the students. Yum!

We checked in to see how our school gardens and kitchens were going now spring is blooming!

It turned out we scheduled our biggest event of the year during the week (or two) of wild weather Tasmania experienced at the end of winter! 💨💨💨 We didn't want anyone to blow away, so we rescheduled, and our Winterfest 24 is now... SPRinterFest 24! And it’s happening this Saturday 12th October.
Come along and visit our home Botanical as we celebrate with Connected Beginnings on the Kutalayna/Jordan River foreshore. ⁠We have a full day of fun activities planned — free food, live music, arts, crafts and more! ⁠

We have some very talented musicians and performers performing on Saturday, and to find out a little bit more about them we chatted with Kyesha from Geneslave, a local band who is playing. 

Connected Beginnings and us are excited to present! SPRinterFest 24!

Spring has finally sprung our chef Vlad can’t stop pesto-ing everything! We thought we would try and corner him for a recipe of his spring pesto... it's ever evolving but last week at Bond Place in Gagebrook this is what he used! Who knew you could pesto brassica flowers?

The recipe was a hit with the community at Bond Place and some like Kaiden were gobbling it up. How good! Vlad is a master at weaving in all the healthy greens and making them delicious #greensbystealth

Spring has finally sprung our chef Vlad can’t stop pesto-ing everything!

Earlier this winter we checked in with two of our north west Tasmanian primary schools to see how their newly finished gardens have bloomed!

East Devonport Primary School was buzzing with activity, with the kinders buddying up with year sixes to plant the herb — and pollinator — garden. East Devonport’s brand new perennial garden features a beautiful outdoor classroom with sandstone seating and timber arbor which will be trained with grapevines for summer shade; stepping stones winding their way through a food forest with native edibles, herbs, fruits and flowers; a sandstone yarning circle; polytunnel for year-round food production; an excellent self stirring (worm-powered) compost setup; and loads of enthusiastic students who have already been enjoying pizza with veggies and ‘green sprinkles’ from the garden!

It’s a crisp August morning at Kingston High and the garden is humming! 

A year on from the garden’s establishment, it’s exciting to see thriving winter crops — beets, brassicas and an abundance of leafy greens — and to behold student-led improvements to our original garden design — timber work benches, a vegetable wash station and a terracotta-paved communal dining area, to name just a few. 
The polytunnel is a jungle of climbing snow peas, and the bushfood corner is soon to become home to a new Flow beehive.

As students arrive for their weekly garden session, there is a sense of rhythm and routine. Students check in with Garden Specialists Nadia Danti and Jimmy Corrigan, before dispersing into smaller teams to carry out their garden roles. Ava, Ruby and Lacey have shared a weekly produce list with the school kitchen and taken note of their order. Together, they harvest carrots, silverbeet, beetroot and hakurei turnips, washing and crating them up for delivery back to the kitchen where they’ll make their way into cooking class recipes and canteen offerings. In exchange, the kitchen sorts its food scraps into buckets for composting. Angus collects these buckets once full, delivering them back to the garden’s composting hub. Here, a variety of compost systems — bays, bins, and worm farms — teach students how waste can be transformed back into rich, fertile soil. It's a satisfying cycle.

It’s a crisp August morning at Kingston High and the garden is humming! A year on from the garden’s establishment, it’s exciting to see thriving winter crops — beets, brassicas and an abundance of leafy greens.

24 Carrot Gardens program manager Kris McCarthy in conversation with Thibaut Favier, 24 Carrot Garden specialist at Austins Ferry & Kingston Primary Schools.

We all feel it- the warmth in the air is teasing us and the plants, and urging us to get growing! We asked Thibaut Favier, expert 24C garden specialist, what he’s doing with the students in the garden now to prepare for the warm months ahead, and how he manages spring fever- the temptation to plant all the vegetables because it’s finally warming up!

The cold days are nearly past, and it’s time to move on from winter. Thibaut prefers to grow big brassicas like cabbages, cauliflowers and broccoli, and root crops like carrots throughout the cold months. “All our winter vegetables were planted in summer & early autumn, and as the days get longer, our overwintered crops will start to bolt (go to flower).” Thibaut says. He and the students are now pulling them out, leaving a few to flower for the pollinators.

Springtime is a time to change things up in the garden, and dream of the joys that only summer offers- fragrant tomatoes warmed by the sun, beans that climb to the sky, crunchy cucumbers and zucchinis growing before the students’ eyes!

Our program manager Kris McCarthy chats with Thibaut Favier, 24 Carrot Garden specialist at Austins Ferry & Kingston Primary Schools to give you some expert tips on Spring garden prep!

The origin story of 24 Carrot Gardens is as much about why and when it started, as it is about where it’s going, and its generative social impact.

I have often reflected on how Kirsha and I grew up in different parts of the world, united by island geography: Guam, a US Island Territory in the western Pacific, and King Island, in the heart of the Roaring 40s in Bass Strait, Lutruwita/Tasmania. Our childhood experiences and relationship with food on those islands expanded across the two extremes of food culture. From the abundance of a veggie patch that was, at my home, bigger than the house I grew up in, to a reliance on mass produced, highly processed foods shipped hundreds of miles to back fill familial kitchen pantries.

These extremes are not only still evident today, but exist across a growing divide. The 24 Carrot Gardens program addresses this by designing, building and running kitchen garden programs in school communities across the state.

The seeds of 24 Carrot Gardens were sown decades ago, and its true beginnings can be traced back to New Orleans, USA. It was there that Kirsha’s immersion in the culture, arts and community catalysed her thinking on a deeper systems awareness of food. Spending over a decade there, she witnessed firsthand the transformative impact of youth engaging in the cultivation of food and the culinary arts. This experience would later inspire her as she relocated to a new island home on the other side of the world, and started working directly with schools.

The origin story of 24 Carrot Gardens is as much about why and when it started, as it is about where it’s going, and its generative social impact. I have often reflected on how Kirsha and I grew up in different parts of the world...

Learning to grow and cook fresh food is transformative. It connects us with ourselves, the natural world and our communities. At 24 Carrot Gardens, we want all young people to feel empowered to cultivate a positive food culture, and we’ve started in the communities that need it most.

Since breaking ground in 2014, we have reached over 4,100 young people through our kitchen garden program. Each student that encounters the program is engaged over multiple years of their school life. We now grow, cook and share seasonal food in 24 schools across Lutruwita / Tasmania, with over 260 hours of hands-on learning happening every week, led by 41 skilled and passionate educators — our Garden and Kitchen Specialists! 

We have celebrated at 7 Carnivals and hosted more than 100 interdisciplinary workshop days, weaving together seasonal food with art, music, science and beauty — because learning is more fun when it’s creative and inquiry-led. We have tended hundreds of compost heaps, sown thousands of seeds, harvested countless kilos of wondrously wonky produce and turned it into delicious meals to enjoy together.

We love to see students observing seasonal change, nurturing plants, building gross motor skills, discovering new interests, gaining confidence, trying new foods, sharing with friends, and coming back for seconds (and thirds!).

Learning to grow and cook fresh food is transformative. It connects us with ourselves, the natural world and our communities.

As part of our 10 year celebration we chatted with Ryan Marshall about his experience in the 24 Carrot Gardens program and how it has impacted his life, education and career. 

We took Ryan back to Moonah Primary School where he was a student at the inception of the 24 Carrot Gardens program. One of our Program Managers, Kris McCarthy, spoke with Ryan about how the program influenced his life and view of food systems. They then ventured to Montrose Bay High School to learn more about Ryan’s experience re-joining the program as a 24 Carrot Gardens Garden Specialist, before finishing up the afternoon with a tour of Ryan’s thriving home garden in the Derwent Valley.

What is now the 24 Carrot Garden site at Moonah Primary School was once a bare paddock, without a fruit tree or raised garden bed in sight. The school kitchen and garden was advocated for by the Principal of MPS at the time, Ange Miezitis. As a result of Ange’s vision and resolve, MPS received a grant in 2009 from Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation (SAKGF) for two years worth of funding. The garden was established and Moonah Primary became a demonstration school in Lutruwita/Tasmania, pioneering the way for the kitchen and garden education movement for the whole of the state. 

Ryan Marshall was in Grade 3 at MPS when the garden was built and spent four years participating in the kitchen garden program before moving for high school. Although he didn’t know it at the time, the program ignited his curiosity and love of gardening and cooking immensely.  

“The [school] garden sparked my interest in the food and garden world,” Ryan shared, “and the program influenced my outlook on healthy food immensely.” He fondly recalled working alongside the volunteers and specialists in the school garden, cooking in the kitchen and then coming together at the end of the lesson to eat together. Ryan elaborated further and shared another standout memory with us, one of a celebrity chef dinner, where he and other students helped to cook and serve a meal alongside a celebrity chef for local community members and politicians.  

Since the funding agreement between SAKGF and Moonah Primary ceased in 2011, the celebrity chef dinners were a regular occurrence as a fundraiser for the school’s kitchen garden program. 24 Carrot Gardens founder, Kirsha Kaechele, attended one of these events and connected with Ange Miezitis, which subsequently provided inspiration for beginning the 24 Carrot Gardens program. You can read the 24 Carrot Gardens origin story here.

As part of our 10 year celebration we chatted with Ryan Marshall about his experience in the 24 Carrot Gardens program and how it has impacted his life, education and career.

6 handfuls baby spinach- chopped if large 

Prepare the vegetables, finely dice onions, slice carrots and dice pumpkin into 1-2 cm cubes, top the beans and slice into bite size pieces

Prepare the cauliflower coconut milk. Roughly chop the cauliflower, blend with the coconut milk and stock until smooth-ish. 

Heat oil in a large pot, sauté onion until softened and just starting to become golden. 

Add tomato paste and spice mix to the onion, cook for a minute or 2 until fragrant

Add the carrot and pumpkin, stir so they are coated in the paste and spice mix

Add the blended coconut and cauliflower, beans and chickpeas, season, stir and bring to a simmer. 

Cover and simmer until veggies are tender

Remove lid and stir through the spinach and lime, season if necessary  

Our chef Vlad shares his deliciously popular pumpkin and chickpea curry 24 Carrot students cooked as part of their deeper learning of 'Seeds' in last terms workshops.

We’re a tad excited - our favourite community hub Bond Place is back with an expansive nature play area, edible food garden and a flash new outdoor classroom.

Bond Place: The ❤️Beat of Gagebrook Returns!

Here's some stuff we've been up to lately.

Stories

Liquid Gold

Reducing Waste

Pumpkin Recipes Galore