Episode: 2
Title: Compost & Worm Farming
Broadcast: August 26, 2017
Presenter: Nigel Ruck

Today Nige visits Baldivis Secondary College to have a look around and see what they are up to with their gardening, science and cooking program.

• Composting is an extremely important part of gardening as it adds beneficial microbes and nutrients to the soil and helps to improve structure and water holding capacity.
• At Baldivis all the foodscraps and organic wastes are used in the in compost.
• The program is run by Tim Hill, and covers aquaponics as part of the science program. This teaches the students how to run a successful backyard aquaponics system.
• The humanities department looks at food security with the year 9 students, this connects where their food comes from in the wheat belt to where they buy it in the supermarket and ow it ends up on their plate.
• The home economics department grow some of the products in the school garden and use them in their cooking in their recipes.
• The garden also helps kids with sensory needs, such as children with autism, its about getting them out of a sterile environment using not just their ears and their eyes but also their hands, smell and sense of taste in their learning.
• Tim has found that the kids are extremely engaged when they come outside and learning in the garden, they find it very meaningful in connecting the garden with what they are learning in the classroom.
• The program is very much a holistic experience with students being involved from the ground up, from soil improvements and composting, sewing seeds, growing and maintaining, organic pest and disease control, harvesting the produce and eventually ending up in the kitchen cooking.
• The science program looks at reclaiming the soil from building rubble. The students break down all the different layers of the soil, to create a good soil full of nutrients and worms.
• The worms work their magic in the worm farm, breaking down the compost into a high grade formula that the plants love.

The Garden Gurus
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