Kitchen Garden

From Jill & Simone

LA4

LA4 are a grade 1-2 class who were in Kitchen Garden in week 5 of term 3. 

Thursday 13 August  

Due to Jill needing to have eye surgery & be in recovery for the last 3 weeks of this term, we decided to run the last three classes of term with three weeks of garden, then 3 weeks of cooking while she is away. 

Our first all-gardening week was with LA4. After an acknowledgement of Country and talking about the importance of caring for Country, we headed outside to see what was growing in the garden, then collected snails for our snail jails. 

The rhubarb needed to be picked before it dies back, so LA4 picked it then washed it, chopped it up & put it in the freezer for the grade 3-4s to use. Then it was onto the important task of crushing eggs shells & building eggshell walls around our plants to try and stop those pesky snails from munching on everything!

Then we split up into three groups that rotated through 3 activities: hearing a worm talk with Jill and looking at some of our worms, picking up rubbish (one way we can care for Country) and doing some soil remediation by working compost into some of the garden beds.

Then we read a lovely garden story.

Friday 14 August 

Today was more eggshell crushing, then outside for snail collecting. Even though we filled many snail jails yesterday, we still managed to fill many more today! Then it was on to planting. We had lots to plant today: some corn, tomatoes, mint & oregano. Then we put the eggshells to good use & built some shell walls to protect our new seedlings. 

After lunch Jill talked to the class about seeds, then we planted some seeds outside & did some pH testing on various liquids, including our worm wee, to see if they were acidic, neutral, or alkaline.

Thank you LA5, we got so much done in the garden. We look forward to seeing you back for cooking in week 10! 

Thank you to Lior for coming to help us garden.

LA14V

LA14V are a grade 3-6 class who were in Kitchen Garden in week 6 of term 3.

Thursday 20 August 

This week we welcomed our first 3-6 class, the Vietnamese cohort, LA14V. As always, we started by acknowledging Wurundjeri elders, past and present, and all Aboriginal elders and Torres Strait elders for the care they have taken for Country over the past 65,000 years. 

Outside, we looked at what was growing and what would be ready to use when L14V return for their cooking classes. We have some of the herbs and vegetables used in Vietnamese cuisine and aim to add to our range in the future. Collecting snails for our ‘snail jails’ continues to be a popular, and necessary, activity, as does the crushing of eggshells and building of walls which we did today. 

There were three important tasks to be completed outside, so we split into 3 groups and rotated through them: collecting worm castings from the farms and using them to revitalise the soil surrounding the rhubarb; fertilising all of our edible plants; and collecting rubbish from around the yard as part of our commitment to caring for Country and preventing plastic waste entering the storm water drains.

Friday 21 August 

Following respectful Acknowledgements, it was gloves on and straight outside to add dampened pea straw mulch to the shed bed, the rhubarb bed and the back oval bed. This improves the soil’s water holding capacity and provides another source of nutrients; dampening reduces the risk of pea straw irritating eyes. 

After that we added coffee husks to our compost tumblers. A by-product of the roasting process as well as smelling lovely, the husks are an important source of dry material to balance out the fresh from our gardens. Trevor gave us a special task – to help protect a vine donated by a family, that has been planted in the yard. A temporary solution has been found, and we will consult with Buildings and Grounds to see if we can come up with something more permanent. 

In the afternoon we discussed the Wurundjeri seasons in more depth, then went outside to fertilise all our plants with a seaweed solution. Then back inside to grind eggshells and outside to build more eggshell walls and collect more snails for our snail jails.

It was great to have you in Kitchen Garden LA14V, see you back for cooking in week 8!

Please click through all the photos below to see LA4 & LA14V in action

Please continue to donate clean, dry eggshells. As many as you can give us! We use them a lot to help protect our seedlings from snails.