Kitchen Garden

It has been a wonderful start to Term 2 in the garden! With dewy, fresh mornings and sunny afternoons, our garden is looking vibrant and full of life. Our flowering plants are all shining brightly and creating a colourful display.

Over on the other side of the oval, our Jap pumpkins have truly taken off. We now have 10 Jap pumpkins growing in the patch, bringing our total to an impressive 18 pumpkins successfully grown at Chatham! To celebrate this achievement, our Environment Captains have begun planning a Vegetable Festival Day, inspired by the great idea from enthusiastic green thumb, Hamish R from 1/2B.

Our chicken coop has also had some exciting updates. A big thank you to Mr Peter Manning for conducting important repairs. We have also upgraded our hens’ waterer and feeder using funds raised by our 2025 Environment Captains. Looking ahead, we hope to use funds from the upcoming Vegetable Festival to plant shrubs and greenery around the coop to further support the hens’ wellbeing. In Term 3, we are hoping to welcome some new hens to our growing Chatham chicken family.

This week our Year 3/4 students have been hard at work refreshing the garden beds with soil and compost. They have planted a fantastic range of vegetables including peas, broad beans, carrots, beetroot, lettuce, spinach, garlic and broccolini. Many of these have been grown from seeds saved from last year’s crops.

This term, our Year 5/6 students will be taking their learning from the garden into the kitchen. Their first recipe will take them on a culinary journey to Colombia, where they will be making arepas, delicious cornmeal flatbreads that are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. These are often filled with mozzarella cheese. This idea was inspired by last year’s corn harvest, and Jesiah from Year 5/6 is excited to take the lead in bringing this recipe to life.

We are looking forward to another fantastic term of growing, learning, and celebrating.

Ms Leda Semercioglu

Kitchen Garden Coordinator