Station 11 – Sustainability Gardens

Sustainability is a key focus of the Church in the 21st century. Pope Francis’ letter Laudato Si’ (2014) challenges us all to care for “Our Common Home”.

However, sustainability is not a new concept. Since the early days of the College, there have been produce gardens on the College grounds to provide food for the Sisters and boarders living on site. There are early accounts of the Sisters keeping a cow for milk as well as a few sheep. During this time, the Sisters employed a groundsman who lived on site in a small shepherd’s hut by the Brisbane Street fence near the College Green: his job was to attend to the animals.

The Sisters’ Blackmans Bay property of MaryKnoll was also used to grow a substantial amount of food for the SMC boarders. This provided a significant reduction in the financial burden of feeding both them and the Sisters. In 2019 the Presentation Sisters handed over their MaryKnoll property to CatholicCare to provide affordable housing to people in need.

Photos of MaryKnoll with its extensive gardens.

Today, these Sustainability Gardens allow students to develop sustainable skills in growing fruit and vegetables as well as composting green waste. Some of the gardens focus on local Bush Tucker and others are used by Junior School students to learn about plant life cycles. Much of the produce from these gardens is used in St Mary’s College’s Murphy’s Café.

Left: The gardens are used as a teaching tool for St Mary’s students. Right: Several of the gardens have signage in the local Aboriginal language: palawa kani.

Left: Growing herbs and vegetables as well as developing compost. Right: The outdoor eating space adjacent to Murphy’s Café where staff and students can sample some of the produce from the gardens.

Prayer

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe and in the smallest of your creatures. You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.

Pour out upon us the power of your love, that we may protect life and beauty. Fill us with peace, that we may live as brothers and sisters, harming no one.

O God of the poor, help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth, so precious in your eyes.

Bring healing to our lives, that we may protect the world and not prey on it, that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.

Touch the hearts of those who look only for gain at the expense of the poor and the earth.

Teach us to discover the worth of each thing, to be filled with awe and contemplation, to recognize that we are profoundly united with every creature as we journey towards your infinite light.

We thank you for being with us each day. Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle for justice, love and peace. Amen.

Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 2015

Anecdotes

Mother Anthony, who came to St Mary’s College as a young music teacher in 1899, and later became a Presentation Sister, wrote in her memoir of various ways in which the Sisters tried to be self-sufficient as far as some foods went. They tried to supply the convent’s milk for many years with a milking cow. If a cow calved, they would sell the calf or try to grow it as a food source.

Mother Anthony also observed that men were employed to plant seed potatoes, with mixed success. She herself was part of several well-meaning schemes to grow Christmas turkeys from hatchlings: the grown turkeys would be sold or eaten at Christmas. One year a big basket full of the chicks was taken to the beach on holidays, and did not fare well. Apparently these schemes did not always end in success!