Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program

Despite forecasts of rain, we had three excellent mornings in the vegetable garden. Having prepared our raised beds with either green manure crops, compost or manure we were ready to start sowing and planting this week.

Stevan planted mini red cabbage seedlings

Amelia planted spring onions

Amelia also planted chives in pots. The pots are kept in wine bucket stands - we obtained a stock of them and they are

very useful!

Our potatoes were planted in very large pots a few weeks ago. When the shoots start to show we cover them with soil. We will continue to do this until the pots are full of soil and then will let them grow up into the air.

Liam and Riley worked hard covering all the shoots.

We also planted radish, carrot and coriander seeds and some leek seedlings.

Watering has become a regular job again - good fun on warm days!!

This week we cooked:

Pasta with a creamed spinach sauce

Wholemeal rolls with pumpkin seeds

Carrot and cumin dip

Asian Carrot and Turnip

Minted Mixed Melon Salad

Mini Asparagus Quiches

The carrot and cumin dip was as popular as the previous week! We tried to concentrate on specific flavours this week - some of our recent dishes have been made up of a huge number of different ingredients. This week we wanted to simplify things - so just spinach in the pasta sauce, just melon and mint in the salad, just asparagus and parsley in the quiches, etc.

Here are some photos:

It is great to see skills developing. Rochelle has become quite an expert with eggs! She cracked the eggs and whisked them for our quiches.

And we are always pleased when someone takes the initiative to start setting the table. William is always a big help with this.

We were given some melons this week so decided to invest in some 'melon ballers' and make a melon salad. It was absolutely delicious and enjoyed by all.

Next week we are cooking:

Flatbreads

Waldorf Salad

Roasted Winter Vegetables

Spinach and Potato Curry

Beetroot Couscous

This week we cooked:

Wholemeal rolls

Carrot and Cumin Dip

Cheesy Mashed Potato Bake

Pasta with a Spring Vegetable Sauce

Silver beet and feta rolls

Salad of the Imagination

Cody added the sprouted quinoa and mixed the salad very gently with her hands.

Pasta with a spring vegetable sauce

Salad of the Imagination - garnished with sprouted quinoa

Carrot and cumin dip - the favorite this week!

Silver beet, feta and ricotta rolls

The carrot and cumin dip was definitely the winner this week – in fact we are going to repeat it next week; consisting of just carrots, garlic, olive oil and cumin it was easy and healthy. We have been experimenting with sprouting quinoa and have found that it makes a really tasty addition to our salads – the quinoa is simply kept moist in a glass jar for 2 or three days and rinsed twice daily.

As mentioned last week we are attracting quite a lot of publicity at the moment – an article about our program has been published on the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation web-site – take a look by going to http://www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au/ and clicking on ‘Southern Support School’s Kitchen Garden Program Flourishes’. We are also now the featured school in their spring newsletter – you can access it from the following link:

http://www.responsetrack.net/viewemail/?192LK004AD3%2D6c95fd7347d9aab38664bf38e73df280

The people at the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation are delighted with what Southern Support School is doing – here is a quote from the author of their newsletter, commenting on the information given to here for inclusion in the article:

“It's wonderful to be able to include a snapshot of your Kitchen Garden Program and how it operates in a special school. Just great. I was so inspired by your email I printed it and read it to anyone I could capture!”

And then after it was published she has sent the following message:

“I've already received an email from a member of the public wanting to assist in the Kitchen Garden Program at a special school because of the feature story - just wonderful.”

Hopefully other special school will be inspired to join the program.

After selling out of recipe books yet again we have printed more and they are available at a cost $10 from the front office or by sending a note in to us.

Next week we are cooking:

Wholemeal rolls

Carrot and Cumin Dip

Mini Asparagus Quiches

Pasta with a Spinach Cream Sauce

Asian Carrot and Turnip

Minted Mixed Melon Salad

We have had a lovely week in the garden, mainly preparing our beds for planting next week. We have cut down and dug in our green manure crops, added lots of compost from our compost bins and will be planting some seedlings and seeds next week.

Ellen starts to dig in the green manure crop

It was quite hard to dig the green manure crop in!

Cody and Joseph shredded paper for the compost heap

We were given lots of grass cuttings for our compost heap

This bed is now ready for planting next week

Cameron harvested silver beet

It was so nice to be out in the warm sunshine

A busy morning

Michael helped clean up the garden beds

Litiani and Ryan worked hard digging in the green manure crop

Jayden really enjoyed a sensory experience on Monday. We were given lots of bags of grass cuttings for our compost bins and decided to see whether Jayden would enjoy a grass cutting foot massage!! He loved it – fantastic smell and feel – a great sensory experience.