Kitchen Garden
4S
Students from 4S have been enjoying sessions in the garden over the past 5 weeks. Thank you to the parent and grandparent helpers for joining our sessions. Most weeks, they have harvested lots of summer vegetables and fruits. Some of this produce has been enjoyed in class as snacks, some taken home to share with their families, some washed, chopped and frozen for cooking sessions and some made into preserves.
Everyone has had an opportunity to use garden tools. Hand forks and trowels have been used to plant autumn vegetables of carrots, beetroot, lettuce, peas and broccoli. Secatuers, snips and loppers have been used to trim and chop spent summer crops for compost and cutting dried seed pods from plants to use for future plantings.
Insects, bugs, spiders and birds have kept little minds curious with lots of questions and wonderings about good vs bad in an edible garden ecosystem. The sunflowers, dahlias, yarrow, cosmos and zinnia flowers have added a rainbow of colour to the kitchen garden, with a noticeable reduction of disease and pest infestations this year compared to previous years. Our hot tip; increase biodiversity in the vegetable garden by adding different varieties of flowers among the garden beds, they attract lots of beneficial bugs and insects.
Our cooking session is next Monday 24th March. We’re all very excited to create a three course meal using (mostly) fresh produce from the kitchen garden.
Produce Boxes
As we move through the season,s there will be times when we have more than enough produce to use in our school cooking sessions. If you would like a box of fresh produce, let me know and I’ll add your name to a list so I can contact you when they become available. Fresh produce boxes are $25-$30 each, with a mix of at least 5 vegetable varieties.
Jars
Keep dropping off those clean jars. Thank you! We have lots of preserving to do when the weather cools off and I can spend some time in the kitchen. Right now, the garden is keeping me busy.
Happy gardening and cooking,
Allesha