Kitchen Garden

This fortnight in Kitchen Garden we have had a very productive time, getting some items ready for our Kitchen Garden stall at the Red Gum Festival.

Last week the grade 3-5s harvested our cucumbers, then learnt about preserving fresh fruit and vegetables by pickling them.  They practiced their knife skills using the bear claw grip to avoid slicing fingers! We made lots of jars of delicious Pickled Cucumber and this week put labels on the jars, ready for sale.

The grade P-2 also has a busy day outside last week, stripping lavender to make beautifully scented lavender sachets. This was a time consuming task and they did such a great job. Today the older kids finished off the extras that hadn’t been filled. The school smelt delightful!!

This week I was delighted to arrive to find a great supply of bags of manure ready to use. Thanks to Maddie for bagging it up and Brook for donating it.  It was also wonderful to have a lovely big bale of straw, generously donated by Nathan and Michelle, ready to use as mulch and in the chook shed. Thank you so much for our tremendous family support we receive to help with our program.

Grades 3-5 quickly made use of the manure, digging it in to the new bed we are developing as a sensory garden. In a busy morning they also ticked off planting, watering, weeding, mulching, stripping lavender and harvesting veggies. We were thrilled to have a visit from the Western District leader of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program, Mrs Monique Sobey, along with another leader, Liza from NSW, who were keen to see the kids at work and joined in to help.

This week we had the grade preps with us as well as the 1s and 2s and we were making something, but not to eat! We filled stocking pieces with a mix of potting mix and grass seed and worked together to tie it up, creating a caterpillar. We then soaked them thoroughly with water and added eyes and antennas. Now they will sit in the sun on the window ledge and hopefully grow into Hairy Caterpillars which the students can then practice their secateur skills on to give them hair cuts.