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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!

With warmer days ahead, we say a huge thank you to the 213 brave participants who took to the icy waters as part of this winter’s Ladies Who Jump event. Registrations doubled this year and we closed out the campaign with an incredible $302,628 raised for 24 Carrot Gardens!

Thanks to the generosity of participants and their friends, families and communities, more students across the state will enjoy, grow, cook and share fresh, seasonal food. The funds raised are already being put to good use, helping to grow the program in the north and northwest and supporting our established school gardens with additional staffing and equipment upgrades. 

If you missed out on donating to this campaign we accept donations all year round via our donate page.

With warmer days ahead, we would like to say a huge thanks to everyone who braved the icy waters for this winter’s Ladies Who Jump event. We doubled last year’s registrations...

Our student workshop program at Botanical in Bridgewater is in full swing for spring, with groups from our 24 Carrot schools visiting each week for a series of learning-by-doing sessions. This term, students have hand-dyed fabrics with natural indigo, created beauty products with everyday ingredients and rolled up their sleeves to help in the market garden.

No 24 Carrot workshop would be complete without a shared lunch — prepared by the students, of course! Our Chef Vladimir Panevin has shared his recipe for Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi with us, a menu favourite from this season’s workshops. It is quick and easy to prepare, and completely delicious. We served ours with garlic flatbread and a colourful garden salad and we thought we would share it with you — enjoy!

No 24 Carrot workshop would be complete without a shared lunch — prepared by the students, of course! Our Chef Vladimir Panevin has shared his recipe for Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi with us, a menu favourite from this season’s workshops.

Vlad's Gnocchi - From the 24 Carrot Kitchen

On the cusp of delivering our new garden design with the community of Ravenswood Heights Primary School, we caught up with Rosa Virgo and Adam Holmstrom our long-term collaborators from Inspiring Place.

Working in landscape architecture and environmental planning, Inspiring Place are committed to community-led garden design as a way of delivering abundance and impact.  

Hi Rosa and Adam – can you tell us about your collaborative approach to community-led garden design?

We listen and learn from the environment and people. The garden design process always starts with students, teachers, families, community members and grounds people. Who turns up at the ‘birthing’ stage and the first few meetings is really important. 

This shapes how the project will be realised. We love using creative ways of exploring and witnessing the physical site including site walks and interactions that help us observe and understand the ways in which people interact with what is already there. Landscape elements can have surprising uses. We find dense established plantings are really loved as they provide playful spaces as well as sheltered areas for mindful reflection.

These activities are then complimented by conversations as to what makes for a good kitchen garden (including things like the type of plants, sun position and access to water). We invite people to share ideas through writing, drawing and verbalising a vision for the garden. 

We always stay true to practical ideas for example, plants that can be used in the kitchen. We’ve found Italian herbs are a favourite as they work well in lots of dishes and recipes. In East Devonport, locally sourced kelp is used in the compost to make the garden thrive. Some schools have incorporated materials found around the school like old bathtubs and sinks, others have used class time in other subjects to make structures and work benches. 

How does this approach impact the community and outcomes?

Creating space for multiple needs, voices and insights means increased opportunity for ownership and ingenuity. We like to leave the door and invitation to be involved wide open. This means the whole school – students, teachers, volunteers and community contribute ideas. 

We’ve found this approach gives the garden a reach beyond the garden bed. For example how the garden physically connects to other areas of the school, how produce grown in a school garden can be made available to the wider community and how the garden relates to other food programs in the neighbourhood. 

Healthy eco-systems include healthy environments and humans. As well as looking at healthy soil and produce, we look to where we can create healthy communities. Our next big dream is to support 24 Carrot in their exploration of integrated training and experiences that lead to traineeships and qualifications in horticulture. 

What is your top piece of advice for people who are keen to establish a productive garden?

We would suggest to establish a productive patch, to invest time, energy and most of all, compost, into building healthy, living soil first!

On the cusp of delivering our new garden with the community of Ravenswood Heights Primary School, we caught up with Rosa Virgo and Adam Holmstrom our long-term collaborators from Inspiring Place.

A Botanical market garden update from Lou Sales our Horticulturalist 

Winter is well and truly here at Botanical and we’ve had some pretty hard frosts over the past week. There is not much you can plant at this time of year (even the weeds slow down!) giving us a welcome break from garden maintenance tasks and the opportunity to get stuck into some major garden development.

We’ve built a new garden and food forest to complement our community site at Bond Place, which is due to be completed in August. We are also constructing a garden for our new Beauty Lab at Botanical. This will include a range of plants that we’ll use in our beauty products - such as kunzea, tea tree, dog rose, rosemary, lavender, camomile, lemon balm, mint, aloe vera and pig face. Today we are harvesting calendula, rosemary, lime balm, lavender and lemon grass to dry out ready for our first Beauty Lab workshop at the Winterfest on 30th June.

Many of these plants have the added benefit of being great for beneficial pollinators and our resident bees. We tucked our bees up in bed ready for winter last month, with a full box of honey per hive to keep them going over the cold winter months. We also reduced the size of our hive entrances to keep our cold drafts and to help prevent honey robbing by mice and wasps.

Since we are not growing many seedlings at the moment, we’ve temporarily converted part of our seedling raising area into a mushroom growing chamber and have been teaching visiting school groups how to grow grey oyster mushrooms in tubs. If you are keen to give mushroom growing a go too, I’d highly recommend Milkwood Permaculture’s Free Growing Guide to get you started. They also have a great online course for those wanting to learn more.

Winter is also a great time to take hardwood cuttings. Over the coming weeks we’ll be taking grape cuttings to give to our schools and the local community. If you want to have a go at taking cuttings yourself, Goodlife Permaculture have some easy to follow instructions on their website here.

Our new apprentice Travis is particularly interested in growing fruit trees, so we intend to expand our orchard this winter, moving and planting trees during their dormant season. We’ll use espalier techniques to squeeze in as many trees as we can including plums, cherries, pears, nectarines and peaches. We are looking forward to being able to share the produce with our schools in years to come.

Note: Lou Sales is our Horticulturalist who looks after our 1 acre market garden in Bridgewater, Lutruwita/Tasmania. Botanical produces hundreds of kilos of produce for our schools, community and food banks along with thousands of seedlings to keep our school gardens fruitful all year round.

Winter is well and truly here at Botanical and we’ve had some pretty hard frosts over the past week.

The ladies are jumping again this 24th June.

Our fearless founder Kirsha Kaechele is at it again! Ladies Who Jump is on back on this year and the fundraising goal is bigger than ever! $300,000 to fund our 24 Carrot Gardens program in Tasmanian schools.

It’s that time of year again, when brave ‘ladies’ (whatever that means for you) take the plunge into Tasmania’s icy waters to raise funds for 24 Carrot Gardens!

Ladies Who Jump, this year held on 24 June, is your chance to rally a team together, get your kit off and to warm our hearts by generously donating to a great cause – healthy gardens, communities and schools across the state.  

Need inspiration? Last year’s team captains and jump veterans the Crispy Carrots, Taroona Tough Titties and the Bruny Island Ladies share their expert advice.

- Choose your preferred body of water based on accessibility, beauty and how public or private you prefer your plunge to be 

- Pick your time of day – plunging as the sun comes up is guaranteed to keep you invigorated for the rest of the day 

- Indulge in ‘spiked’ coffee for dutch courage and to get the blood moving through your body

- Shrieks, swear words and squeals are encouraged

- Remember it’s not how far you plunge that counts but that you plunged at all  

- A fire pot will bring warmth back to your bones post plunge

- Be prepared for the full body post dip tingle and glow 

- Let the thought of the 24 Carrot Gardens team and hundreds of Tasmanian kids and communities having access to healthy produce and gardens warm your heart!

Our fearless founder Kirsha Kaechele is at it again! Ladies Who Jump is on back on this year and the fundraising goal is bigger than ever! $300,000 to fund our 24 Carrot Garden program in Tasmanian schools.

2022 saw the serious expansion of 24 Carrot Gardens across Nipaluna (Hobart), in the north of the State and for the first time, in high schools. Together with our school communities, support from the Department of Education and our landscape design partners Inspiring Place and the University of Tasmania, our development team commenced a total of nine new transformation projects across the state.

Through listening to local knowledge and encouraging the creativity of students, educators, families and the school community, we collaborate to envisage how under-used spaces can be transformed into beautiful and productive living landscapes. Environments that bring beauty and offer a valuable contribution to the education curriculum through learning that occurs by growing, harvesting and cooking fresh produce. 

Each site responds to place and people and is as unique as the community who has imagined and developed it. Together we design, problem solve, dream, construct, plant and through conversations of care, communities connect and take ownership  of these future ecologies. 

With more sites to transform in 2023, we are energised and inspired by the number of schools and communities now reaching out to us and expressing their interest in being part of a vibrant food culture and establishing gardens filled with delicious produce. We continue our fundraising efforts to support and enable the establishment of more school gardens. 

More gardens in more schools and communities means more access to delicious produce. More gardens make stronger community connections, generate better health outcomes and develop moments of collaboration and celebration. We believe communities with vibrant food cultures have strong futures. 

We’re looking forward to planting more seeds of radical renewal and growing a vibrant food culture across in Lutruwita in 2023!

A huge thank you to our generous and growing network of funders, volunteers, collaborators and the nine schools who joined us in 2022:

Department for Education, Children & Young People

University of Tasmania (School of Architecture and Design)

Jordan River Learning Federation Senior School

2022 saw the serious expansion of 24 Carrot Gardens across nipaluna (Hobart), in the north of the State and for the first time, in high schools.

From asphalt to wonderground: sowing seeds of radical renewal across Lutruwita.

24 Carrot Gardens is the core education program of the Material Institute Lutruwita/Tasmania. And we are proud to announce (trumpets…!), that through the efforts of our hard-working Board and team, the Material Institute is now officially a charity!

We’re here for a very good cause - to raise a gazillion dollars for the 24 Carrot Gardens program so we can bring school gardens, nutrition and education through artful experiences to regenerate communities across Lutruwita/Tasmania. 

We’re excited about our new charitable status because it grows our potential to deliver even more programs, and with them, greater opportunity to more Tasmanian communities.  

Since establishing Material Institute in 2021, we have:

 - established 5 new primary school programs in the north of the state and 4 new high school programs in the south

 - secured over 2.3M in funding through philanthropy, grants, government support and curated events

 - delivered over 100 in-school kitchen and garden classes to an audience of over 1500 students 

 - hosted over 750 students in 2022 alone, at our base camp, Botanical Institute, in the heart of Bridgewater for hands-on learning experiences in gardening, cooking and the creative arts

We acknowledge the generosity and contribution of our past and current patrons, associates, friends and every community donor, partner and sponsor who has dug deep and galvanised our impact through their passion for our purpose. 

Every gift no matter how big or small makes a positive difference. Your generosity can buy garden tools and equipment, mulch and pots, clay, cooking and art supplies or seed new gardens in schools and communities across Tasmania.

In 2023, we’re excited to be launching new ways you can get involved and support 24 Carrot Gardens so stay tuned! Or you’re always welcome to drop off a fruit tree (or a bag of cash) to Botanical or our spiritual home, Mona.

We tailor our sponsorships and partnerships so feel free to drop us a line.  We’d love to hear from you, take you on a tour of one of our gardens or host you at an upcoming events. 

Or if you prefer, make a donation here. All donations over $2 are tax deductible. 

As we embark on our first year as a charity, we would like to take this moment to extend our immense gratitude to:

- the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens and Colony47 for auspicing the 24 Carrot Gardens program since 2013

- the inaugural 24 Carrot Gardens program steering group  - Renate Hughes, Angela Miezitis, Niall Doran and Robert Sveen

- Material Institute Board members Kirsha Kaechele, Patrick Kelly, Nic Whyte, John Balazs and Kelly-Anne Williams.  

The Material Institute Tasmania is now officially a charity and charitable organisation!

Our Carrot Carnival celebrated its sixth birthday in 2022! An annual event where we invite 24 Carrot Garden schools and communities to come together for a day filled with art, food and music. 

For this Carnival, artist Selena de Carvalho joined us to curate the festivities. We caught up with Selena to learn more about her arts practice and her approach to radical acts of care and inspiring future climate custodians.   

Hi Selena! Thanks for joining us today. We’re thrilled to be collaborating with you on the sixth annual Carrot Carnival. Art is a vital aspect of all our programs at 24 Carrot Gardens. Can you share a little bit about yourself and your arts practice?

My practice is interdisciplinary and takes on many forms including installation, performance and sound works. It is situated in imagined ecologies and I spend a lot of time in the natural environment. Places such as fields, forests and rivers and especially those that are vulnerable. I translate the experience of being with these vulnerable places into art experiences extending the act of empathy and listening. 

What is the connection between your arts practice and the Carrot Carnival?

The work of 24 Carrot Gardens is very much aligned with my ethos. An ongoing question is ‘how do you break through social circumstances and open them up to new possibilities?’. Art, humour, food and beauty can all do that. 

My art is usually experienced by a few people at a time so the challenge here was to think about an artful experience for 1,300 people and mostly 8 to 12 year olds! 

Another consideration has been ‘how do we open up a conversation about climate change for this age group?'.  And how do we encourage curiosity and dreaming into a future space that can either be presented with false hope and positivity or as defeatist and fatalistic? 

The answer in a way is to come back to basics and this is also what the 24 Carrot Gardens program does so well. It’s radically simple. Put your hands in the soil, watch the cycles of nature, recognise where food comes from. This all brings joy and a sense of connection and belonging. 

What was your hope for Carnival goers and their experience?

That they make phenomenal memories. People brought their curiosity and were ready to have some fun. We had some great performance ensembles and artists programmed including a 'Weather MC' - essentially a cloud providing an update on weather patterns. We had roving science experts ready to answer questions related to climate change. As well as gaining knowledge, people had fun and we hope the event inspired curiosity to learn more.

Thanks so much for your time Selena! We look forward to seeing you at the Carnival. Where else can we find you?

This summer I’ll be with the ocean and the bespoke mobile Elsewhere Sauna. You can find me on Sundays at Randalls Bay Beach. Come for a swim, a sauna and repeat. The sauna really encourages people to care for themselves and I’m really just there to open the door. It’s another way I can care for and restore nature—in this case of the human kind!

Selena de Carvalho is an interdisciplinary experimental artist living in Longley, lutruwita, Tasmania and this year’s Carrot Carnival curator. 

What do carrots and radical acts of care have in common?

Our expansion into the north of Lutruwita/Tasmania has signalled a great leap towards our big ambitions. 

It's very exciting to be starting our first ever development in the northern regions, as we break ground at East Tamar Primary School. 

Our development manager Reuben Parker-Greer is at the helm, with garden design assistance from UTAS architecture students. Our northern project manager Joanne Dean is also on the tools making it all happen. 

Before breaking ground, we had design consultations with students, teachers and community to make sure the designs created by UTAS really take on board the wishes and dreams of all involved.

Breaking Ground at East Tamar Primary School

Jordan River Learning Federation's Senior School is the first high school we've started working in for the expansion of our program. 

With tireless work from our development manager Reuben Parker-Greer, we spectacularly cut up chunks of asphalt in the heart of the school to create our beautiful kitchen garden—designed by the generous Inspiring Place Studio.

It has now reached stage one, with garden bed infrastructure in, seedlings in, seating in, and a bit more to come!  

Their garden has reached its first stage of development, with garden beds and seedlings in!

Jordan River Learning Federation Senior School reaches stage one

Well—that was a blast. After winning community event of the year last year, our Winterfest came back with a bang for 2022: an amazing line-up of indigenous musicians and entertainers, face painting, fire twirling, Deadly Choice's famous smoothie bike, spray painting, ceramic workshops and a massive hangi that fed everyone with delicious earth-cooked meat and vegetables. We had an incredible time, and the hundreds of folks who joined us seemed equally excited.

A huge thanks to the TAC and the Kutalayna Collective for their amazing support—we can't wait for next year!    

After winning community event of the year last year, our Winterfest came back with a bang for 2022.

Over a hundred plucky ladies (and a few gents) made the chilly jump for 24 Carrot Gardens on 2 July, giving us a record-breaking haul of funds raised.

The annual tradition of an icy ocean plunge for charity continued this year—spearheaded by our fearless leader Kirsha—and was an even bigger success than last year, raising over $215,000 (a huge jump on the $120,000 we raised last year) to support our program’s growth and expansion in the north of Tassie.

Over a hundred plucky ladies (and a few gents) made the chilly jump for charity on 2 July, giving us a record-breaking haul of funds raised. 

The cooking, YouTubing, and all-round general legend Nat from Nat’s What I Reckon stopped by the Botanical (our headquarters in Kutalanya / Bridgewater) recently, to check out the community space and meet 24 Carrot catering students from Montrose High School.

Nat told us about some of his personal experiences at school, and his journey to finding stable employment. He talked about how he found comfort in ‘real’ food and what that has meant in his journey. Follow our social channels for more!

The cooking, YouTubing, and all-round general legend Nat from Nat’s What I Reckon stopped by the Botanical Institute (our headquarters in Bridgewater) recently.

Nat’s What I Reckon visits Botanical Institute

Our Bond Place community space is currently transforming (metamorphosing, cocooning, etc) to grow—yes, actually grow—a permanent new classroom structure (there will be built elements to the structure itself, but plant growth will be an integral part of the building), which will allow us to host more activations and workshops, as well as expanding our programming to three days per week.

The build will be complete in 2023 in partnership with Brighton City Council and Centacare Evolve for the 'Gagebrook Renewal Project', supported by a $140k grant through the Building Better Regions Fund.

Our Bond Place community space is currently transforming to grow—yes, actually grow—a permanent new classroom structure.

Since the start of 2022, five new primary schools in the north and north west of Lutruwita / Tasmania have joined our program, along with two high schools. We’ve also recruited our first northern program manager—the excellent Joanne Dean—to oversee and spearhead the 24 Carrot revolution up north.

As the first step in their journey, the new schools are getting busy (with some help from our friends at UTAS) planning their gardens so everything’s ready to rock once we hit the planting season. 

Since the start of 2022, five new primary schools in the north and north west of Lutruwita / Tasmania have joined our program, along with two high schools. 

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

Stories

In The Beginning

Cultivating a Positive Food Culture

Ryan's Story