Kitchen Garden

From Jill & Simone:

LA8E

LA8E are a grade 3-4 class who were in Kitchen Garden in week 3 & 4 of term 4.

Week 1 

Thursday 22 October

A gorgeous day to be outside as we welcomed LA8E to kitchen garden! Following an Acknowledgement of Country that focussed on how the Wurundjeri and other Kulin Nation custodians had sustainably managed the environment for hundreds of generations, we went outside to explore. The recent warmth has seen the garden flourish. Potatoes, silverbeet, rainbow chard, broad beans, carrots, beetroot and leeks were harvested. Lucky LA8E were also the first class of the year to start picking the strawberries!

 The increased warmth means it’s time to water more and to mulch, so after wetting the pea straw to prevent dust and straw from swirling around as we worked, all the beds with produce were mulched.

LA8E worked really hard outside even though it was a very hot day & had frequent rewards of cold-water sprays on their heads to help keep them cool!

After lunch we discussed Poorneet season (Poorneet is Woi-Wurrung for tadpole) and read Frog’s First Song with mirthful audience participation. The potatoes had the dirt brushed off, were wrapped in newspaper and placed in the dark until later in the term; silverbeet and leeks washed and prepared for Friday’s torte. 

The strawberries were cut up & macerated with a little sugar – a delicious afternoon treat.

LA8E finished the day by bundling up bunches of leafy greens to take home – we hope families enjoyed them.

Friday 23 October 

Today LA8E put to use some the fresh vegetables they had picked from the garden. They were making a rainbow chard, corn & ricotta torte (a savoury tart with a top!). LA8E made the pastry first, then while it was resting chopped the silverbeet, rainbow chard & leeks. Those vegetables were cooked, then mixed with a variety of herbs from the garden. Different tables used a combination of mint, thyme, oregano, lemon thyme and parsley, then mixed it with ricotta, some corn from the garden frozen in term 1, and the cooked vegetables. Then it was time to get rolling! The pastry was rolled out, first the base then the lid. The base had the filling placed on it, then the lid on top of that & the edges of the torte joined together. Every table decided to make a big torte to share. Yum!

Week 2

Thursday 29 October

Another gorgeous day to be outside with LA8E! After Acknowledgements, the garden exploration focussed on pollinators (first praying mantis sighting!!) and the seeding plants in the garden. There were more ripe strawberries to harvest, and the rhubarb had grown significantly in the past fortnight. Both were harvested in preparation for Friday. 

Garden maintenance is critical at this time of the year. LA8E got to clear 2 beds of vegetables that had gone to seed and were being kept for seed collection. The plants were pulled up & the seed heads saved to dry out. LA8E also pulled up our remaining spring onions to take home as we won’t be using them for cooking anymore this year. 

After lunch was watering all fruiting plants and wilting greens. Last week’s mulching has helped reduce leaf wilt and the strawberries are really responding to the heat. The pear tree is covered in fruit while unfortunately the first tiny pomelos have dropped – either because of the heat or the wind. Some tiny green extremely hungry caterpillars (Pieris rapae) were found & collected, and we looked at the life cycle of caterpillars and read a caterpillar story. 

Friday 30 October

Today LA8E were making rhubarb, apple & strawberry crumble! The rhubarb was trimmed, apples peeled and the fruit chopped and cooked lightly. We were lucky enough to pick more fresh strawberries yesterday for our crumble - they are loving this burst of spring warmth! So they were cut and added too. Then it was time to crumble the butter and flour together, then oats & cinnamon were added and everything was sprinkled on top of the fruit & into the oven. The class went out for lunch while the crumble cooked & they got to eat it nice and hot when they came back in, with cold plain yoghurt. 

After crumble we did a taste test of 2 different teas: apple peel tea (from our apple peelings for the crumble) & lemon verbena from the garden. So refreshing!

Well done LA8E, you worked really hard during some hot days & we hope you had fun with your time in Kitchen Garden!

Thank you to Maureen K for coming to help with the cooking days. 

Be sure to click through all the photos below to see what LA8E got up to in Kitchen Garden.