The vegetable garden survived well over the Christmas holidays, a little messy underfoot at the moment with lots of gum leaf litter but with frequent watering the fruit trees, herbs and vegetables are all flourishing!  The Christmas break kept me busy not only watering and maintaining the garden but cooking, testing and formatting some scrumptious new recipes that I look forward to sharing with the classes this year.

We currently have a good amount of apples, peaches and plums on the trees as well as lots of fresh herbs, silver beet, beetroot, eggplants, leeks and warrigal greens all ready for cooking. Cherry tomatoes and zucchinis are also growing well and we have lots of pumpkin seedlings popping up everywhere.  Looks like another good crop again this year. We can also look forward to a few lemons and a second season of figs, and hopefully, we can look forward to increased crops from them in the future. Unfortunately, no koalas were spotted in or around the garden over the break. If you have excess produce from your own home gardens we are happy to take it for our kitchen lessons. Any produce can be dropped off in the Front Office or left in the kitchen from Monday to Thursday, and we are always extremely grateful for your donations.

We look forward to making positive connections and strengthening our relationship this year with the Pimpala Kindergarten as well as the Happy Valley Elderly Citizens Housing Southern Day Program. This will include hosting luncheons, garden tours, gardening sessions and Choir performances

The Kitchen Garden Program will once again run a whole school program this year. Each year level will participate in a block of both kitchen and garden lessons.

Each kitchen lesson requires 6 volunteers. It would be lovely to have some volunteers in the garden as well to help supervise small groups of students with activities such as sowing seeds, seed saving, watering etc. Volunteers can be parents, caregivers, grandparents, aunts or uncles or family friend and are welcome to help out in numerous classes if they wish.  Volunteers need to have completed the RAN-EC Training and have a current DCSI clearance.  Volunteers are now able to complete the RAN-EC training through a link on the Department for Education website. Certificates need to be sighted by the Front Office staff. Any questions can be directed to the Front Office staff who can also assist volunteers in obtaining their DCSI clearance.                                             

If you have any questions about the program or wish to put your name down to volunteer in one or more of the classes, please don’t hesitate to ring or SMS my volunteer mobile number 0408 637 850.  We would not be able to run this fantastic program without the help of volunteers so all help is greatly appreciated.                                           

2019 PROGRAM

Term 1

Weeks     3-9           Year 6/7                 Ms Power, Ms MacLean, Mrs Lewis/Mr Sboro.

Term 2

Weeks     2-4           Year 1/2                 Ms Howlett & Ms Birss

Weeks     5-7           Year 1/2                 Mrs Thomas, Ms Currer & Ms Pullman

Weeks     8-10         Reception             Ms Ryles/Ms Idzikowski, Mrs Lang

Term 3

Weeks     2-9           Year 4/5                Mr Kemp, Ms Rigney/Ms Stanley, Mr Burns, Mr Branson

Term 4

Weeks     2-7           Year 3/4                Mr Lohmeyer/Ms Dixon, Ms Kaye/Ms Files, Mr Lucas

Michele Smith

Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Coordinator

Volunteer Mobile 0408 637 850