I attend the garden group run by Tatiana at the New Farm Library every second Friday. And yesterday Tatiana arranged a visit to the New Farm State School garden. Complete with chooks (chickens!).
It’s great to see what parents and volunteers have achieved in setting up and maintaining this garden. Thank you Nicole and Leanne for showing us around.
It’s a wonderful environment for the children and they love it.
New Farm State School Little Farm
Centre bed in the round garden
A colourful corner
Plenty of dirt to scratch in
Happy gardening.
Allotment Adventures with Jean 
Nov 11, 2012 @ 04:25:39
I had a terrifying moment there where I thought that one of my girls had managed the impossible and had gone to Queensland before I did! That first gratuitous chook shot has a half wyandotte that looks suspiciously like some of my chooks…the problem with chooks in the garden is that they scratch. Not a bad thing when you have established trees and lots of good soil but if your soil is a bit fragile and ancient and you haven’t gotten around to sorting it out yet the chooks can actually wreak havoc! My lot have dug dust baths all over the place and when a herd of 20 chooks (some of them are still wandering the wilderness jungle area like grasshopper but 20 is enough believe me!) decides to all dustbath in the same place they can kill a tree! I planted out some penestemons not so long ago and if it wasn’t for the fact that penestemons will grow in a dry boot under the eaves in the Gobi desert, these poor babies would be cactus by now! The chooks and I are circling each other at the moment…my lot are heifer chooks and love nothing more to dig…dig around plants I have just planted…dig out precious trees whilst leaving weeds completely untouched…dig out the perennials in my garden bed whilst completely ignorning the clevers that I am told they “love”…my lot are not normal chooks! They have evolved through natural selection to peck feral cats, to gang up on the unsuspecting and harangue their way to getting more seed when they are just being fussy because they want more organic black sunflowers (to make them fatter) and they spend their entire day complaining about their lot underneath the deck where EVERYONE can hear them…sigh…the only saving grace in having chooks in a kids garden is that kids are quick! They can dart around like Earl and “quick” things make chooks nervous. They make them think twice about turning upside down in a huge pile of dust that they have liberated from under a precious tomato and instead, keep their beady eyes open and scanning the horizon for small predatory kids with the object of picking chooks up and giving them a BIG cuddle in mind… Maybe I don’t need an enclosed pen…maybe I just need grandchildren! I will send the son and heir off a quick missive post haste! š
Nov 11, 2012 @ 13:48:58
Hi Fran. Had a good laugh at your chooks’ carrying’s on. (I can be unkind sometimes laughing at other peoples troubles). At the school they used little fences around some of the garden areas to keep them chook-free.
Nov 11, 2012 @ 14:01:37
lol you didn’t show us that…I thought that they were magic chooks that somehow knew to stay out of the veggie gardens! What they really are is miscreants who are as bad as our chooks! I love a good laugh too Jean and am very good at laughing at myself š
Nov 11, 2012 @ 11:31:56
How wonderful that you should write a post about NFSS! In the mid 90s I did a teaching contract there, and just loved it! Of course it is all quite changed now as the demographics of the area has changed and the school population is much larger now. I used to go back once a week in the early 2000s with my class from the nearby Fortitude Valley SS, for swimming lessons. Lovely memories š
Nov 11, 2012 @ 13:52:09
Hi Maria. Fancy you working at NFSS once. I didn’t go into the school itself, just the garden. It was a lovely atmosphere and the children love it. You are right that the New Farm area has changed so much. Teneriffe has changed beyond recognition since they have developed the old wool stores.
Nov 11, 2012 @ 19:36:30
That school garden looks AWESOME!! I am so impressed! I would love to be able to have chooks roam freely in our back yard. Only we have two Jack Russels, so if we tried it, methinks it would work only briefly, and then we’d have but feathers >o<
There are a couple of schools near(ish) us which have their own gardens, though not as spectacular as this one looks.
Man! I am so jealous! I really WANT that garden, LOL!!
Nov 12, 2012 @ 09:17:29
It is a lovely garden Mrs Yub. And the chickens certainly add a bit of personality.
Nov 14, 2012 @ 01:12:21
Hi Jean. The school garden is brill, all the volenteers do a wonderful job. I can’t imagine chcikens running around the primary school near us…they would be stolen within five minutes around here..a sad world
Nov 14, 2012 @ 13:35:08
Hi Not just green fingers. I think the only thing they have to worry about is making sure the chickens are locked up at night against possible rodents.