Pineapple patch from scratch

WHEN confronted with a barren piece of Sunshine Beach State School’s landscape that was best described as dry and dusty, the students saw a wonderful opportunity to get creative.
Resident permaculture gardener Di Seels, who is always encouraging everyone to ‘think outside, with no box required’ asked the Sunshine Beach learners to come up with a solution and that’s exactly what they did.
The learners decided to turn the land into a pineapple patch.
What a great way to turn a piece of unused sandy land into an attractive and productive addition to the already flourishing permaculture garden, and so Sunshine Beach State School’s pineapple patch complete with mosaic tiling was created.
Year 4 learner Cassi said pineapples were actually quite easy to grow.
“You just get pineapples with their green spikey tops still on from the market and snap the top off by twisting it. Then you let them dry off, find the little roots under the dead leaves and plant them,” she said.
Bella explained pineapples like a lot of Sunshine.
“At Sunshine Beach State School, we have lots of that and now we have lots of pineapples too,” she said.
“Once you have planted the pineapple tops you then just need to have a little patience. Soon enough tiny pineapples start to grow on the top of the bit that you planted. They will grow bigger and bigger until they are ripe and ready to pick.”
This year the permaculture garden has had a bumper crop with several harvests of a variety of herbs, fruit, eatable flowers and vegetables, including a massive rockmelon-sized sweet potato.
The fresh produce has been shared with the school tuck-shop or sold to families for a coin donation, via the ‘Sunshine Kids Market Cafe’ another idea generated by the Sunshine Beach learners.
The donations help to purchase more seeds for next year’s crops.
Di said the permaculture garden was an ever evolving part of the school and the school was very welcoming of donations of seeds, seedlings and, of course, pineapple tops.
Learners from all year levels get to experience and appreciate the beauty, peacefulness, joy and outside learning opportunity of the permaculture garden.
Prep learners particularly enjoy watching plants grow from seedlings to eatable plants and participating in environmental art projects.