Growing wheat, turning it into flour then making bread. Creating seed-raising pots out of
newspapers. Constructing hotels for bees and frogs. Raising crops of rain-fed rice. Making
beeswax wraps and chook tractors.
These are just some of the exciting, innovative ideas that local primary school children have
come up with over the past eight years as part of the annual Grow Your Own Lunchbox
event. An initiative of the Mullumbimby Farmers’ Market, it was launched in 2015 and,
barring a three-year break necessitated by Covid and the floods, has been eagerly
anticipated – and planned for – each year since then.
Around seven Byron Shire schools participate, coming together on the day to show-case the
hard work and preparation they have poured into it. The brief was to encourage schools to
create gardens in order that children could grow their own food, understand its provenance,
find ways to transform it into meals or preserves or pickles. The actual day culminates in the
Grow Your Own Lunchbox challenge, whereby groups of students compete good-naturedly
against each other to come up with a healthy lunch box on the spot, using as ingredients the
produce sourced from their own gardens.
Here, too, over the years, the results have been impressive: frittatas, Vietnamese rice paper
rolls and orange polenta cupcakes have been produced alongside lamb on rosemary
skewers with flatbreads, cassava cake, sweet potato crisps with ginger and turmeric
hummus, mulberry muesli bars, herb-infused salts and oils.
In addition, the schools must compete in categories for a box of vegetables from the school
garden; for preserved, pickled or dried products; and for garden fund-raising ideas.
Over the course of a Friday morning in the glorious grounds of the Mullumbimby Farmers’
Market, these resourceful children – future farmers? future chefs? – engage in amicable
rivalry, share the fruits of their kitchen gardens and their stories, and highlight the
importance of healthy, local and fresh food.
This year’s event is on Friday 6 September 2024.

Lunchbox Challenge!

Update: And the Winners Are!…