The chrysalis was stone-cold coal black. Nearby, the children had found a butterfly with a hole in its wing.
The sun was shining and the birds were singing but down in the garden it had all gone a bit existential.
"Sometimes when butterflies are born at the end of the season, when it's very cold, sometimes they have defects," said Caroline McCartney. "Also, they don't live very long. Maybe it is at the end of its life?"
The small girls frowned. Then they planted carrots.
Garden to Table is a primary school programme that teaches kids to grow, harvest and cook food. It is death and life and later there might be lemon muffins.
Three-quarters of all of the food sold around the world is processed. In developed countries, processed food accounts for between 40% and 75% of nutrition and energy intakes. New Zealand scores relatively highly for fresh fruit and vegetable consumption but latest figures show 63% of us still fail to eat the recommended five or more serves a day.
In the Maungawhau School garden in Mt Eden, the pineapple sage is flowering neon red and the wax-eyes are having a go at the citrus. A 9-year-old has just pulled up a full-grown carrot.
"What does it smell like?" asks McCartney, the school's garden specialist.
"Fresh," says one child.
"Like a carrot," says another.
Did you know that if you wash and dry and finely chop a carrot's feathery green tips you can combine them with coriander and make a dipping sauce for vegetable-stuffed dumplings?
The average New Zealand household wastes $1071 worth of food annually. About one-eighth of what we buy to eat is eventually thrown out. The worst offenders are Millennials, who bin 15% of their weekly food shop. Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) waste just 8%.
Research by online rural bank RaboDirect found lifestyle and age play a role in food budgeting.
"It's often presumed younger generations are more environmentally conscious," says chief executive Daryl Johnson. "But the survey found younger generations were more likely to eat out, were cooking meals from scratch less often and were less likely to eat leftovers."
The bank is sponsoring a Garden to Table winter initiative; a nationwide Root to Tip cooking competition with 12 regional heats. The finals are in Wellington on August 3.
On the occasion of the Auckland final, the lift to the fourth floor of AUT's School of Tourism and Hospitality was packed with potatoes and silverbeet, onions and cauliflower, beans and beetroot and ("I don't know how you say that?") je-ru-sa-lem artichokes.
At 10am it smelled like apples and lemons. By 10.30, the kitchen was sweet with roasting pumpkins.
What does a persimmon taste like?
"Sort of ... plain," says Kate Slyfield.
Why are you using potatoes?
"Because they are quite filling, and they taste quite nice," says William Chamberlain.
Is that an avocado the size of a grapefruit?
"My grandparents own an orchard," says Juliet King. "And we'll be using the skin as a little bowl for the zesty aioli and the whipped avocado dressing and we'll be using the pip to keep it all fresh."
"Look over there," the children whisper to each other - "is that mint in a plastic packet?"
Garden to Table has its roots across the Tasman. Founder Catherine Bell is a long-time friend of Melburnian Stephanie Alexander; the cook, restaurateur and all-round Australian food legend who established food education programme the Kitchen Garden Foundation.
In 2008, Alexander spoke about the foundation's work at a New Zealand food conference. Bell asked the gastronomically-inclined crowd for expressions of interest in a local scheme.
The programme's cornerstones are grow, harvest, prepare and share, and the target audience are 7-to-10-years-old. It now encompasses 150 schools, including 88 who take part in an online version. Another 200 schools are waiting to join up.
"I still get goosebumps every time I go to a school," says Bell.
"There's a lot of research around young people - youth who are older than the children we're dealing with, but this is where it begins - which says they have no empathy. They don't know how to nurture. Garden to Table teaches children how to nurture something. It gives them pride and a sense of achievement. They grow a seedling, they watch it, they look after it, and they're picking the results ... kids who know how to nurture are less likely to commit crime, they're less likely to suffer from low self esteem, they're less likely to suffer from depression or abuse substances if they share food around the table in a family environment where they feel nurtured or cared for."
At the Root to Tip competition, everybody starts out with 100 points. They lose marks for lack of seasonality, store-bought ingredients, poor presentation and waste that could be avoided. On every bench there is a white plastic bowl and, when the cooking time is up, the waste will be weighed. Nobody here is peeling a carrot. Stalks will be eaten. Skins will be caramelised. The liquid from a can of chickpeas is being whipped into a mousse that will sit on top of a kiwifruit jelly to be set inside a kiwifruit skin.
There's a cauliflower pizza on the go at the Whangaparaoa Primary bench. They'll be making chips from the stalks.
"Most people forget about the stalk," says Mia van Zyl. "But we're trying to make no waste."
Why?
"To help global warming," says Shilei Ralph.
The stress is building. Is that potato cake cooked? How much longer? Stop opening the oven! How do you repair a tear in an avocado skin? Was all that oil supposed to be added then? Are the dumplings tender? Are the fritters burning? Stop! Don't put the metal bowl in the microwave! The shortbread has to go in the oven. Four minutes. Three minutes ...
Eden Tinholt, 10: "We got the dumplings and the pumpkin pie done, we're hoping they liked it."
Mila Hrstic: "I don't even eat pumpkin, but that was delicious."
The judges will agree. Maungawhau School's dumplings and pie will take them all the way to second place. Te Hurihi's spectacularly colourful waffles (preceded by a course of crispy beans, kale and seriously delicious raw beetroot dip) will place third. The winners - by just one point - are the only mixed team.
Green Bay Primary's Juliet King and Noah Saunders have performed like pros. When that was definitely too much oil, they kept going. Somehow, they repaired that avocado and baked those shortbread stars with seconds to spare.
Chief judge Paul Jobin tells them: "That light mousse and then that nice gooeyness of the kiwifruit in the bottom; lightbulbs just went off in our heads."
Plus, he says, they were by far the most communicative team.
Juliet grins. "I found out what happens when I get nervous. I talk. A lot. My grandma, she already cried when we made it this far. I don't know what she's going to think when she finds out about this!"
