BOY GARDENERS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 139, 10 December 1930, Page 9

BOY GARDENERS

PETONE WEST SCHOOL

Most primary schools have a garden •which is tended by the pupils, and a common practice is, to give prizes for the best of them. The Petone West School has a garden, but prizes are not given, Sior do the' boys want them. The success of this garden is based upon the enthusiasm of the boys, and the result of their enthusiasm is indicated by the claim that there arc not two other school gardens in the whole of the Wellington district to compare with it. Fifth and sixth standard boys are the gardeners, but most of the work is done by the fifth. There are. 34 in the class, and they have twelve plots to look after. In May lupins were sown to dig in, and this quick-growing crop so stimulated, interest and competition that the boys have needed no inducement since. At present the garden is harmoniously laid out in rows of beans, swedes, mangels, onions, parsnips, carrots, and potatoes. From the time they were given the seed up to the present the boys have done everything themselves—the teacher has not touched the garden. Experiments were encouraged, and comparisons were made between different varieties of the same vegetable and between some which were transplanted • and some which were not transplanted. '"Al\ the science lessons given in the classi'oom were correlated with the work in the garden. Only half an hour a week of school time is devoted to the garden, but such is the keenness of the boys that they spend a lot o£ otit-of-school time looking after their vegetables. Some boys have even .been inspired to make gardens for themiselves at home., The same boys will have the same school gardens next year, and ■when volunteers were called for to come back on Saturday mornings during the holidays to maintain the gardens eyery hesf in; "Standard V. offered his sravieefy