The wonders of nature at Ballyhaise school

The pupils at St. Mary's NS in Ballyhaise are learning the wonders of nature in the most practical way as their pencil parings and fruit peels help produce the vegetables they will be picking within a matter of weeks. The 150 hard working young people are making their own compost with the waste they produce daily at school. It also includes certain types of paper and in the autumn the leaves they sweep up around the yard will be added to the mix, explained teacher and Green Schools co-ordinator Rory Donnellan. "Instead of just having it [the waste] sitting there, hopefully the kids will be picking their own vegetables," said Rory. The Green Flag Litter and Waste Committee has built the school garden in the form of two raised beds for carrots, parsnips, peas, pumpkins, cabbage, lettuce and onions, and they're growing potatoes in old tyres. Rory did a schools garden course at the Organic Centre in Rossinver, Co. Leitrim, where he learned about the potatoes-in-tyres technique: ""You sow them in a tyre full of compost, and when the stalk grows to about 18 inches put another tyre on top and fill that with compost too. You double the depth, and you can take that to the height of three or four tyres, so you should treble or quadruple the amount of potatoes per plant. "Once it clears say, a tyre and a half, add another one and instead of developing leaves, it'll develop potatoes." Rory explained that the kids are mostly behind the project: "I keep them steered in the right direction. It's child-led, they do the work, I just make sure it gets done," he said. Before school closes for the summer, the pupils have to develop a timetable so every family takes responsibility for weeding and watering the garden; as payback, they pick whatever produce is ready and take it home to the table. St. Mary's has its first Green Flag (for litter and waste) and is working on renewing that and going for the energy one. With a dedicated team like they have, it should be easily achievable. • The students and teachers at Ballyhaise NS thanked Seamus Costello of Annalee Garden Gravel, who provided the soil for the garden.