Rain, hail or shine we were not going to miss out on our garden and kitchen experience! With so much rain the ground in the chook pen turned into a mud pit! It was funny watching everyone try to catch a chook and not fall over!

We had many questions in relation to the health benefits of organic produce and free range eggs, the vegetables with the highest protein content and why this is an essential nutrient. Before we harvested the fennel we didn’t even know what it was! Some students were surprised to see beetroot growing underground.

The carrot muffins were easy to make and tasted delicious. There was enough to take some home and were quickly eaten by my brother!

On Friday August 30th we went to the Kitchen Garden. I’m in Group 1 and we gave the chooks some food and water. It was hard to fill up the chicken’s drinking place with enough water for them to last the weekend but not to overflow it. We collected the 3 eggs they had laid.

Next, we cut the best Rocket leaves off its plant. It was surprising that the leaves didn’t have to be so big.

As it is getting closer to summer, we are about to grow some pumpkins and capsicums  by planting seeds out of actual pumpkins and capsicums!  We filled seed trays with seed-raising mix, put the seeds in and labelled the tray by writing the name of the plant on a popsicle sticks.

On the 3rd of September, we went to the kitchen and my group, group 4, made gnocchi. We got flour, mashed potato and eggs and kneaded them all together. We found it hard not to crack the eggs on our shoes! We next rolled little bits of the mixture up into sausage-like shapes and cut them into gnocchi sized pieces. We cooked them and they were ready to eat. Out of all the things on the menu (Gnocchi with a tomato sauce, Beetroot and Balsamic risotto, salad with Japanese dressing and Honey Cupcakes) my favourite was the honey cupcakes.

Kitchen:
On Tuesday the 3rd of September 5B went to the kitchen, because that week it was Rosh Hashanah, we got to make Honey cake but we also got to make Gnocchi with a Tomato Sauce, Beetroot and Balsamic Risotto and salad with Japanese dressing. Group 4 made the Honey cake. With the honey cake we had to put a lot of honey and flour once we mixed all the ingredients we had to put it into cupcake holders and cook it. Group 3 cooked the beetroot and then mixed it with risotto. Group 5 made the tomato sauce once they got all the ingredients in the pan it was all splashing over them. Group 2 made the gnocchi. They had to use a lot of flour and potato. Group 1 made the salad and Japanese dressing. The Japanese dressing had mirin, celery and ginger whilst in the dressing we usually make has vinegar, garlic and oil. It was great fun and then extremely tasty when we ate it.

As has been done in the past, this year we hosted a group of Year 10 students from the Arava region in Israel. As they come from an agricultural community, they loved spending time in our Kitchen Garden. Some comments by the students were “Wow so many different vegetables are still growing when it’s so cold!”, “Why have you chosen to use sprinklers rather than drip feed watering?”, “The Strawberries are so small and very tasty even when it is Autumn”. 

Garden

Last week on Friday 19^th we had a garden lesson. First our group fed the chickens with the compost bin scraps from the canteen. We had to take out all the egg shells from the compost because if the chickens eat the egg shell then they will start eating their own eggs and if they eat their own eggs we won’t get to cook with them in the kitchen. Later on, we harvested the spring onions. We had nothing else to do so we went to the group that was planting the carrots. After that the lesson was finished.

Kitchen

Every fortnight we have a kitchen lesson. Today we made pizza, pastries, salad, tahini cookies, and preserved lemons (which we didn’t eat). My group made the fattoush salad. It didn’t take long so for the rest of the time we set the tables and cleaned up. Then it was time to eat (yay) all of the food was delicious! It was a great program.

by: sian