Kitchen Garden

From Simone & Jill

LA3

LA3 are a grade 1-2 class who were in Kitchen Garden for weeks 1 & 2 of term 3. 

Thursday 16 July

Following Acknowledgements of Country, everyone headed out to explore the garden.  LA3 used pictures to learn some of the names of plants that are growing & that we will be using in the next couple of weeks. Carrots were harvested and scrubbed, ready for tomorrow’s class. They also picked warrigal greens, then washed & wrapped them for next week’s cooking class. Donated eggshells were ground to provide snail and slug barriers. 

After lunch, we looked at garlic bulbs Jill had found sprouting in her kitchen, and discussed whether they were seeds, before planting them in the garden. It’s traditionally too late to start planting garlic, but we have very unseasonal sunflowers about to flower, so who knows! Everyone participated in adding fresh garden compost to the long bed under the trees & we looked at the difference in the size & marking of the worms in the compost vs the worm farms. 

When we went inside, we read a story book about a worm family.

Noor, Amani, Snow, Kuol, Beth and Keira from grade 5-6 came down to help in the garden as well. It was fantastic to have so many gardeners in the team today for sessions 3 and 4.

Friday 17 July

Yesterday we harvested carrots from the garden & discovered 2 different types – regular orange & purple.  Some were even a combination of orange and purple! They were the star of the show for our carrot muffins. We also added parsley, thyme & lemon thyme from the garden & cheese for extra tastiness. 

LA3 ate their carrot muffins hot out of the oven with fresh home-made butter. Two jars of cream were passed around the room & everyone used their collective muscle power to shake the cream until it separated into butter solids & buttermilk. Then the solids were strained and divided among the tables, who salted & refrigerated the butter for a little bit, so it wasn’t so soft. 

Thursday 23 July

Because of industrial action, there was no Thursday 23/7 class, but we look forward to seeing LA3 back in the garden in term 4 for a replacement class.

Friday 24 July

Last week’s cooking was about the orange & purple carrots, and this week it was all about the greens! We used warrigal greens picked last week and freshly picked rainbow chard, silverbeet & mint to make a green soup. There was lots to learn and pay attention to: chopping, grating and adjusting temperatures with the pot, depending on what was being cooked. We cooked the leafy greens with potatoes for creaminess and added peas and mint at the end to keep the fresh flavour, then blended it all up. 

LA3 even got to pick one of the lemons on the lemon tree. It was so fresh & added delicious flavour to the soup.

Everyone worked really well together on their tables. They all pitched in to wash up & clean up and worked well as teams. 

Thank you to our family helpers Meng, Martina, Tom, Alex, Camilla, Amy & Maureen. Much appreciated. 

Well done LA3! It was great to have you in Kitchen Garden. See you back for more gardening in December!

Please scroll through the photos below to see some of the many things LA3 got up to in Kitchen Garden.