Kitchen Garden
On Wednesday 12th of February, we began our first garden sessions for 2025. As the weather was extremely hot and tree maintenance was occurring, we decided to wheelbarrow all our equipment to our upstairs Kitchen Garden classroom!
Welcoming the students in Year 3/4 for the first time this year was met with cheer and excitement. We explored the change of seasons and the effect this has on our produce. We talked about how delicious summer fruit can be and how vegetables are often sweet and bright at this time of year. We also learnt about soil chemistry and the need to compost and re-nourish the soil before planting our winter vegetable seedlings.
As part of our sessions, each class made newspaper pots and used a combination of new seeds and seeds that we had collected from our garden last year. Onions, cauliflower, broccolini, leek and red and green cabbage seeds were all delicately planted, and then generously sprayed with water. The students will be tracking their progress using a tracking chart.
We discussed that most of these vegetables were from the Brassica family. This sparked interest in some students from 3/4L, who then decided to further investigate this terminology and share their findings with their class. Here are some fun facts discovered by Jenson:
Brassica is a genus of plants in the cabbage and mustard family. This includes cabbage, bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower and turnips.
To prevent winter brassicas rocking in the wind, mound soil around their stems.
Brassica plants can cross-pollinate to create hybrids that can contaminate other brassica seeds.
Newspaper pots are an easy and environmentally friendly way of getting started when it comes to planting seeds. Once the seeds begin to germinate and then become strong seedlings, the pots can then be directly planted into the garden beds, which protects the root systems. The paper then eventually decomposes in the soil. This is something to try out at home!
We finished our sessions by taste testing a selection of cut radishes, cucumbers and capsicum. The students were very keen to try this produce and were particularly surprised by the spicy nature of the radishes!
Ms Leda Semercioglu
Kitchen Garden Coordinator
