Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden 

Bianca Tondo 

Garden Specialist

Welcome back to Term 4 in the Stephanie Alexandra Kitchen Garden! 

If you have had a chance to wander around the school grounds, you would have noticed that we have some new garden beds in the back garden near the year 3 portables. Our existing garden beds are 10 years old and are falling apart. So far, we have 4 new beds that are nearly double the size. We are hoping for 10 beds in total by the start of next year. The new garden beds have been filled with a fresh lot of veggie mix soil. With this fresh rich soil, I am looking forward to bumper crops this summer. With the bigger beds, I will be looking for volunteers to help me in the garden next year. 

The year 3s have joined us back in the garden this term. They will be busy planting and watering seedlings. We have been placing used 2-litre milk bottles over the seedlings to protect them from snails, slugs, birds and other creatures. The bottle also acts like a mini greenhouse allowing the seedlings to get the best start in life. This is a tip you could easily try at home.

All students in the garden have taken great pleasure in harvesting. Students had to use the Habit of Mind of applying past knowledge to new situations. The students had to recall their maths, specifically weighing the harvest of “greens” for our menu. We have been using the scales to measure out a kilo of pak choy and a kilo of silverbeet. They carefully determined where the kilo mark was and how much of each crop was need to be harvested. They had so much fun!

We have been blessed with beautiful weather to start this term.