Kitchen Garden

On Wednesday 5th of March, students in Year 3/4 were out in our Chatham garden and continued the exploration of soil preparation before planting in our brassica seedlings. We were amazed at how quickly our seedlings had grown and were fascinated with some of the long roots that were starting to grow through the bottom of our paper pots. We then had a quick look at what has been growing in our garden beds and decided together where we would begin to plant our brassicas. We took into consideration how much space was needed and how big each vegetable could potentially grow.

Next, tasks were all assigned to small groups and techniques such as snipping, cutting, thinning and airing were all demonstrated and explored. The most fun was had when the students began sifting through our fresh compost that had been emptied from two of our compost bins the previous day by Peter Manning. The wonder that is compost was beautiful to see - full of worms and moist, rich soil. On a weekly basis, our students in Year 1/2 empty all the small compost bins from each classroom into our big bins and it truly is a fantastic effort on everyone’s behalf.

There were lots of interesting items that did not decompose in the compost bins. These items had been thrown in compost bins by mistake and included textas, sharpeners, yogurt squeeze bags, Yakult bottles, the small stickers that are usually on fruits and plastic wrappers. Through this process, students clearly realised the importance of educating all classes about what is suitable for composting. Students also found lots and lots of peach seeds whilst sifting through the compost. This created curiosity and discussion around decomposition. Some peach seeds had even begun to expose roots, which generated interest in replanting one in a small pot to see if it would continue to grow. Darcy and Jason from 3/4L are now carefully looking after the peach seed in their classroom. 

Some students discovered yellow and black coloured lady bugs, which they will further investigate in their classrooms as to why they are a different colour to the usual red and black lady bugs that we often see. Other students with a close eye tried to find out what insect has been munching on our capsicum plants, concluding that it was caterpillars. Unfortunately, students were unsuccessful in finding any as caterpillars are very good at camouflaging themselves. 

Our sunflowers that have brought so much colour into our garden were ready to be deseeded. The students discovered a fun technique of popping the seeds out and we are hoping to keep them to re-sow at the end of the year. We are building a good resource of seeds from our Chatham Garden and also from students who are keen to bring seeds to school from home to add to our collection. We now have saved seeds such as radish, coriander, parsley, silver beet, lettuce and watermelon. We have also acquired a very interesting variety of corn called rainbow corn to plant in early December thanks to Marsden from Year 5/6. 

Our session concluded with each grade harvesting our very own Chatham sweet baby watermelons. Together we ticked off all the signs that demonstrated to us that they should be ready to eat… and they were! With great excitement, each Year 3/4 class enjoyed freshly sliced, cold watermelon before lunch. A nice reward for all the hard work we had achieved in our garden and the verdict from our students was a big thumbs up! 

Ms Leda Semercioglu

Kitchen Garden Coordinator