Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden 

Bianca Tondo 

Garden Specialist

🌻 Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden News – Term 4 Wrap-Up

As we reach the end of another busy and rewarding year in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden, our students have continued to show curiosity, kindness and care in everything they do.

Our students began their garden session this term by visiting the fruit trees. They were able to see tiny fruits beginning to form and the flowers still attached — making that wonderful connection between pollination and fruit growth. During our garden walk, they proudly pointed out our flourishing cabbages, silverbeet, lettuces, spring onions and beetroot.

Afterwards, they picked silverbeet leaves for the hens (the slightly nibbled ones, of course!) and got to work weeding the garden beds while the chickens enjoyed their dust baths nearby. 

The students were so thoughtful — they insisted that I stay in the garden to “supervise” the hens while they went back to the kitchen. About two minutes later, because the students had gone, the chickens all took themselves straight back into the coop! It was quite the sight. You can see a video of this on our Enrichment webpage.

The Year 4s helped with changing the straw in the chicken coop — a dusty, tough job — but they showed great persistence and teamwork.

Our Year 5 students have been equally busy, emptying our last freestanding compost bin into what used to be the pumpkin patches (now better known as the strawberry patch!). They turned the soil by hand, worked the compost through, and then planted parsley in the tyre garden bed — ready to use at the end of this term or early next year.

Year 3 students have been expressing their creativity by making beautiful paper plate gardens. These will be on display at our Open Day on Tuesday, 11 November from 1–3 pm. Please come along to see their work, learn more about the Kitchen Garden program and find out how you can get involved. We always welcome new volunteers — parents, grandparents and friends — to help in the garden or kitchen. It’s a fun, hands-on way to connect with students and share in the joy of growing and cooking fresh food together.

Our Year 6s helped net the fruit trees, and we’re hopeful this means we’ll have plums, peaches, apples and pears ready to harvest next year. Meanwhile, Year 3 and 4 have cleared and dug over the front beds in preparation for our summer crops — including tomatoes, basil, sunflowers, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, potatoes and corn. These will be planted soon and ready for harvest in our first kitchen classes of 2026.

As one student from 4D said with a grin, “I wish I was a chicken so I could roll in the dirt!” It’s a wonderful reminder of how much joy and laughter our students find in caring for the garden and its lively residents.

A friendly reminder: please avoid picking produce from the garden or around the school. It might look like it’s not being used, but every crop is carefully planned and grown for our students to harvest and cook with. If you could pass this message along to grandparents and family, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for all your support this year. We’re looking forward to another season of growth, learning and delicious food ahead! 🌱🐔

Happy Gardening!