Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden 

The past fortnight has been filled with plenty of digging, harvesting, cooking and learning in our Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. It is always wonderful to see our students enthusiastically trying new foods, developing practical skills and working together in both the garden and kitchen.

We were delighted to receive some exciting news from the Victorian Schools Garden Awards—St Mark's has been awarded a $1,500 Soil Food Grant! This generous grant will be used to enrich and revitalise our garden beds, giving our soil the nutrients it needs to continue producing healthy vegetables and herbs for our students to enjoy. We are incredibly grateful for this support and can't wait to see the difference it makes in the months ahead.

As always, a huge thank you to our amazing volunteers. Your time, patience and encouragement make this program so special. Whether you're helping prepare recipes, guiding students in the garden or simply sharing a conversation while washing dishes, you are creating meaningful experiences that our children will remember for years to come.

We have just two more weeks left with our wonderful 3/4BM class before we welcome 3/4D for the next seven-week Kitchen Garden program. It has been a pleasure watching 3/4BM grow in confidence and independence, and we look forward to another fantastic term of gardening, cooking and learning together with our next group of students.

Happy gardening, happy cooking, and enjoy the little moments that grow into lasting memories.

Bon Appétit!

Tammie Siegert

Violet: This week my SAKG experience was incredible because we got to use a lot of veggies and it was a really cool experience. Today I was in the main meal group and we made broccoli stir fry with honey drizzle. It was really fun to make and my nan even helped out. It was very fun and thank you SAKG for making this possible. I had a really great time so thank you for being there to help and helping us with cooking as we move forward. I will use all these cooking skills that I have learned throughout SAKG. Thank you 

Lucy: Today in cooking we made stir fry. I’m not sure if that was the name of the meal that my group made. In my group I cut up some cabbage and mushrooms. The cabbage was kind of hard to cut. It was so hard I asked Alexia if we could swap. And that's how I ended up cutting the mushrooms. But I was Alexia cutting the cabbage with ease and I was so shocked.

Frankie:  Today in SAKG I made a really yummy apple and celery salad slaw. First we cut some celery then we cut some apples after that our hands started to get quite sticky and wet. Then we seasoned it so we could serve it up.

Ivy: My Tomato table made Zucchini Bread.The ingredients were zucchini, flour, eggs, oil, brown sugar and vanilla essence. I grated three zucchinis and cracked the eggs. It was really fun.

Chloe: Today we made an apple and celery slore salad . At the start we started cutting up the ingredients such as celery,apples,lemon ect. After we cut up the ingredients we poured them all into one bowl it looked like a green wilted garden. At the end it looked like a tasty green nutritious salad.

Santino: In SAKG today we  cooked bread together and  I would also like to thank Mrs Siegert for helping us with the cooking. We wouldn't be able to do it without you and the helpers of all the groups were tomatoes, eggplants , zucchinis and carrots.

Alexia: Today I made the main meal. My group is eggplant. I made a broccoli stir fry with honey dressing. The ingredients are broccoli, cauliflower, capsicum, ginger, garlic, honey, soy sauce, sunflower oil, spring onion, red cabbage and a brown onion. I grated the garlic and ginger into a small bowl.Once we finished cutting up all the ingredients we put all in a cooking wok and stirred it all together. We had to use two woks because we had to make enough for the helpers, students and teachers.

Leo: Today I made the salad. First we chopped the celery into thin sticks and put it into a bowl. Then we squeezed the lemon with a juicer and put it to the side for later. Next we chopped green apples into a bowl. Then we put all the stuff we have chopped and squeezed into separate bowls and put feta cheese and sunflower seeds in the bowls as well.

Joel: I had a really good time there.  I cooked and I cleaned.  It was so fun, I wish I had it every day here.  I would say it’s fun, amazing and a little hard. I was in the tomato group and there's different groups.

Zoe: This week in the kitchen garden my mum came. I stir and stir and stir and stir and stir.

Pravij: at  SAKG I made these weird vegetable  things. I put in spring onions and green lettuce.  Then we stir fried them 😀 i also got  a REEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLY  sharp knife.   I think there is also ZUcchine bread which I did not know you could make bread with zucchini.