SAKG NEWS

Spring is definitely in the air and there has been a lot of action in both the kitchen and garden. In the kitchen, this rotation, students are continuing with pasta making party, using the same dough recipe to begin but making spaghetti instead, and then combining it with a creamy butter sauce and sauteed seasonal vegetables. The harvest from the garden continues to be abundant and vibrant so students have been using rainbow chard, which not only adds flavour and nutrition but also a beautiful burst of colour to our sauce, as well as kale, chives and bunching onions. Over the last couple of weeks students have been dehydrating our surplus of chives, in order to save them for times during the year when there is a shortage. They have also dehydrated celery and other herbs such as rosemary and parsley to make stock powder and seasonings.  

To go with the pasta students are making salad, with freshly harvested oakleaf lettuce and homemade salad dressing. The dressing is both shaken and stirred and contains a secret ingredient that gives it just a little bit of sweetness and has combined beautifully with the cucumber, tomato, lettuce and crunchy noodles. It is exciting to see the students trying new combinations of flavours and more often than not discovering that they do like it after all! And last but not least, we can't go wrong with a freshly baked brownie slice for dessert, the kitchen is smelling absolutely wonderful after all of that.  

Last Week was the Aussie Bird Count, so garden classes participated in this. Each lesson a couple of students were "Citizen Scientists", they sat in one spot in the garden and counted and identified birds. Jodie submitted the results to “BirdLife” for Ecologists and Scientists to use in their research.

Students have also been preparing beds for planting by pulling out old crops and adding compost. This Thursday we will plant seedlings donated by Bunnings in addition to the seedlings grown in our own greenhouse, which include lettuce, beetroot and silverbeet. 

Students have also been very busy harvesting produce for kitchen classes. Tasty greens including snow peas, spring onion, lettuce, coriander, chives, sage leaves and wild garlic flowers have been on the list.

The animals have been well cared for as the guinea pigs had their cages cleaned and the chooks had lots of food from the kitchen and weeds from the garden to peck at! The older students have set up a Petting Zoo and many younger kids visited the garden Monday lunch to have a pat and feed the guinea pigs. 

And finally, a reminder that the garden is open to students Monday (Prep-2), Tuesday and Thursday (Grade 3-6s) lunchtimes. Lots of fun to be had as seen in the photos shared!