Kitchen Garden Update

​We have had a huge month in the kitchen! Our winter menu consisted of egg fried rice, delicious stir fry greens, chicken and ginger wontons and vegetable gyoza. 

We learnt about two different dumpling cooking techniques, boiling and pan frying. The vegetable gyoza has a crunchy exterior while the chicken wontons had a bit of heat from the chillies grown in the garden beds in the quiet area. 

Our good friend silverbeet added some green and crunch to the wontons, while we made use of the abundance of herbs and leafy greens from the garden in the other recipes. 

Students were very keen to equally share out the dumplings amongst the table and the stir fry greens were a surprising hit for many of the children because of the crunch and the delicious hoisin-based sauce. 

Thank you to all our parent helpers this term. We couldn’t run the program without you! A big shout out to the parents from 3/4PC who signed up at the last minute answering our cries for help when we had no volunteers. 

Volunteers always needed!

Don’t forget we have two more rounds of cooking and garden sessions to go for 2023. There are more delicious foods and recipes to explore. Please sign up here- https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B094BABA62EA3F85-term2#/

Garden

In the garden we worked through a huge list of jobs around the school grounds and kitchen garden. We mulched garden beds to help prevent weeds and keep the soil moist. We swept around the ropes course and sand pit to keep the pathways clear and we planted seeds, seedlings and other plants and shrubs. We also took cuttings from the daisy, rosemary and lamb’s ear plants to try to propagate new ones. They are on the windowsill in the kitchen quietly growing new roots. 

Some students took great pride in doing littler pick ups around the school. You wouldn’t believe the things we found. A bike frame, plastic food wrappers and broken discarded balls and toys! A friendly reminder that students and their siblings are not to pick or remove leaves or flowers from the garden. With the warmer spring weather it is really tempting to use the blossoms in the mud kitchen or to make potions however removing any flowers or leaves can impact on the produce we grow and the insects and animals that need those plants. 

Alli is always around the garden on Monday’s and Tuesdays. If you want to help out or spend some mindful time in the garden she can give you some jobs to do. 

We are also having a small market stall on Footy Colours Friday before school. We have some preserves and olives that the students made and packaged last term to sell. Along with packets of seeds, bags of lemon myrtle tea and other produce from the garden. Bring some cash and stock up on goodies. 

Thanks,

Alli, Chantel and the 3/4 team