This term the Year 4/5 classes have been participating in the kitchen garden program. Students have been extremely productive, harvesting, mulching, weeding, seed saving, planting, preparing garden beds for summer planting, building structures for climbing plants, constructing protective covers for our fruit trees as well as giving our scare-crows a makeover. Our 'MasterChef’s' have also been cooking up a storm in the kitchen and cooking dishes using beautiful fresh seasonal produce from the garden.

Some of the student’s favourite dishes so far have been, Herb Pinwheels, Vegetarian Fried Rice, Chocolate and Beetroot Muffins and Deconstructed Fruit Crumble. Students are looking forward to making the Lemon, Leek and Herb Risotto, Fruit Sorbet and Tropical punch (just to name a few) over the coming weeks.

During our first week of cooking we watched knife skills demonstration videos and have since been perfecting our knife skills. Students also learnt about chopstick etiquette and also got to use chopsticks when eating the fried rice that we made.

Many changes have been happening in the garden this year. The old blue broken garden beds are gone and have been replaced with brightly painted recycled pipping off cuts. The new beds have been filled with soil and compost ready for our summer crops be planted out. Many new varieties of bush tucker plants have been planted in the Indigenous Garden.  The timber garden beds from the back section of the garden have moved to a different area to make way for another small orchard, so exciting times ahead!

A big thank you to all the students, staff and volunteers who have assisted so far this year with making these big changes and making our garden such an amazing space. Even with these changes the garden was still very productive producing enough fruits, vegetables and herbs to sustain our cooking lessons throughout the year.

Michele Smith

Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program Coordinator

Volunteer Mobile 0408637850