Food gardens for our children

WaterUps^® Schools & ELCs

“Involving students in food gardens is a rewarding and educational experience with academic, social and environmental benefits.” Sustainable Schools NSW

Why should we have a garden bed or veggie patch at our school?

Quote from NSW Government Office of Environment & Heritage:-

“Creating and maintaining gardens helps students to develop knowledge and skills for sustainable living, and for studying how we can meet human needs while preserving the environment for future generations. Practical activities in garden design, planting and harvesting, can be linked to a range of curriculum areas including science, arts, literacy, and numeracy.”

To see how Trinity Grammar School in Sydney incorporated their Green Patches into the ciriculum what the video below put together by their Sustainability Teacher, Mel Bargwanna.

Why use WaterUps^®?

Make maintaining a school veggie garden much easier.
Keep your school garden watered during holidays when you’re not there.
The WaterUps^® team can provide guidance in fund raising for your school or ELC garden and can help with identifying and accessing appropriate grant funding.

School and ELC Projects

Trinity Grammar School, Summer Hill NSW

In mid 2021 WaterUps^® worked with Landscape Architecture lecturer at UNSW, Melinda Bargwanna, to help establish an amazing array of wicking garden beds for growing edibles in a various areas of the junior school. These will be central to the sustainability ciriculum that Meinda will be running at Trinity.

Kiddiwinks Pre School, South Windsor NSW

In December 2020 WaterUps^® did its first installation for Urban Landscape Projects at their Kiddiwinks Pre School project at South Windsor in western Sydney. ULP has been building wicking beds into their landscape designs for a number of years. They are now using WaterUps^® because they make installation much easier.

Bondi Public School, Bondi NSW

In early 2019 WaterUps^® was approached by Bondi Public, a Stephanie Alexander kitchen garden school, to help solve a watering problem with their garden beds. This led to the school installing 35 WaterUps^® Oasis steel beds over the following year.

St Luke's Grammar School, Freshwater NSW

In October 2020 WaterUps^® helped St Luke’s refit a large existing garden bed on the roof area of the school with WaterUps^® and to build a new timber wicking bed.

Broderick Gillawarna School, Revesby NSW

In June 2020 we assisted with the installation of a number of our Oasis steel wicking bed at Broderick Gillawarna, a special education school for students with disabilities.

Urbenville Public School, Urbenville NSW

In late 2019 WaterUps^® was asked by Urbenville Public School to assist them to revamp the vegetable garden at this northern NSW school. Water had always been a challenge for this small community and the WaterUps^® wicking beds allowed them to provide fresh produce at the canteen.

Smalls Road School, Ryde NSW

In August 2020 we helped install our wicking beds at the school. The beds were planted with a range of bee attracting ornamentals, rather than vegetables. The beds are part of a Sydney pollinator highway promoted by B & B Highway, the brainchild of a not for profit organisation, Planting Seeds.

Mosman Public, Mosman NSW

In October 2020 WaterUps^C were retro-fitted to round and oval-shaped corrugated steel beds. This was done by JV Landscapes to create an efficient array of wicking beds for the school.

Learn about wicking beds in the classroom

As part of an initiative to promote interest in the building of their school vegetable garden using wicking beds, the Geography Department at St Luke’s Grammar School on Sydney’s Northern Beaches have made mini wicking beds out of plastic milk containers.

Watch their video on how to make a milk container wicking pot

WaterUps^® is now working with the school to design and build some external vegetable garden beds.