July 2025
Liquid Gold
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!
Students and specialists at three of our northern schools from Burnie to Launceston picked a combined total of 28 kilograms of olives, and we were interested to see that the olives were all so different- from large purple/black fruit (yes, olives are a fruit!) at East Tamar PS, to small green olives at Ravenswood Heights PS and even smaller, black olives at Romaine Park PS. When I collected the pressed olive oil from the wonderfully helpful folk at Cradle Coast Olives, I learnt that our school olives yielded seven litres of golden-green coloured oil.
Once the oil was filtered and bottled, I had the pleasure of delivering the beautiful golden liquid to the schools. On the day I visited East Tamar Primary to deliver their oil, garden specialist Anthony had gathered the very same class of year 1 & 2 students that had picked the olive harvest just two weeks prior. We set up an outdoor tasting table under the olive trees, and invited the class to sample the result. For many students, freshly pressed olive oil on bread was an entirely new taste and sensory experience, and I’m happy to report that they all gave it a try, with some coming back for seconds and one student proclaiming that the oil was `stupendous!’.
Students described the appearance, taste and mouthfeel of the oil, and wondered how they would use the oil in the kitchen. Once word of the olive oil spread, teachers from the school came out to the garden to enjoy the bounty from their own school trees!
This garden-to-plate olive oil project delivered real-world, hands-on and sensory-rich experiences which sparked curiosity in students and staff. I’ve been honoured to be the link in the chain that connected 24 Carrot partner schools with a generous local business to create an education-OIL learning experience!
