Kitchen Garden

It was so nice to be back in the garden with our Year 5/6 students. Our weather did provide us with some challenges at times, but we persevered and managed to succeed with all our garden tasks. We began by removing our netting that was protecting our brassicas from the white moths. Most of the brassicas were doing well, however a few plants did have some caterpillars camouflaged underneath the leaves, which we removed.

We planted peas, carrots, beetroot, mint, sweet peas, spring onions, lettuce and potatoes. We also turned over one of our compost bins and put it to sleep. We then crushed our washed eggshells that we had collected from our omelette cooking sessions, as well as our Environment Captain’s muffin fundraiser, and then sprinkled them in our garden beds to add calcium and to deter the slugs. A batch of natural pesticide was also made, using dishwashing liquid, canola oil and water. This mixture will hopefully keep away the aphids that like to munch on new growth this time of year.

We always discover something new in our garden and this session was no exception. When we were digging our soil to plant in our new seedlings, we discovered lots and lots of… grubs! This created an opportunity for further research and we found that they are the larvae of beetles, most commonly Christmas beetles and June beetles. These grubs like to feed on plant roots and can cause damage to lawns and garden beds. We carefully removed and collected the grubs, and all were re-homed out of the garden beds. 

Olives Update

Our Chatham olive tree was very fruitful this year and we were able to harvest some of them to preserve and some of them to turn into olive oil. Together with Katie Hunt, an ex-Chatham parent, I dropped off 12.7 k of olives to CERES in Brunswick four weeks ago, to contribute to their ‘Olive to Oil’ program. This program involves community members dropping off their olives, which are then pressed to produce olive oil. After this process is complete, contributors are entitled to pick-up 10% of their original contribution weight in olive oil! This equated to one large bottle for us, which will be used for all our upcoming cooking sessions. This project was originally implemented by CERES to combat olive waste and also the hazard they can create when they fall on footpaths in the community. It was a very rewarding experience for us and we hope to collect an even larger contribution of olives next year from our community to join in this CERES project.

Ms Leda Semercioglu

Kitchen Garden Coordinator