To celebrate National Skills Week, Moruya TAFE students are transforming a plain public lawn into food fit for a festival.

On Monday, construction and horticulture students and teachers will unveil a community garden on Eurobodalla Shire Council’s front lawn.

Many students have combined to create, install and maintain five self-watering garden beds to provide food for the November South East Harvest Festival.

The under-utilised lawn must have been too tempting for TAFE horticulture teacher Gabi Harding, who sees it regularly in her other role as a shire councillor.

She said the five garden boxes filled with soil would grow herbs and salad vegetables.

“The design of the garden beds means they only require to be manually watered once a week,” Ms Harding said.

She said the role of Certificate III Carpentry students was to create and install the beds, so Certificate III Horticulture students could plant and maintain them.

“One core idea involved is for each of the student groups to engage in a project they can work on and see from start to finish,” Ms Harding said.

“Last year we created a garden for one of our students with an intellectual disability, which was very rewarding for all involved.”

The project is the result of a partnership between TAFE Illawarra, Eurobodalla Shire Council, Sustainable Agriculture and Gardening Eurobodalla (SAGE) and the South East Harvest Festival.

National Skills Week, now in its fourth year, begins on Monday.

The celebration highlights the opportunities and career pathways available through vocational education and training. 

The South East Harvest Festival is held every 16 months on the banks of the Moruya River to showcase seasonal food.

It will be held this year from November 7-9. 

The garden beds were intended to be temporary, but there is a push for them to remain as “a gift to the community”.