From Summer to Autumn

Welcome to the new Year 4 classes and welcome back to Year 5! Also a big thankyou to our volunteers who have been helping out and to those who have donated some wonderful produce - cucumbers, zucchini, nashi pears, beans, capsicum, basil and passionfruit plants.

We have all been out in the gardens finding our way around, learning the names of the different gardens and doing some harvesting, watering and weeding.
Cherry tomatoes, carrots, parsnips, cabbage, garlic, mint, parsley, passionfruit, apples and peaches have been harvested.

In the kitchen we have talked about the importance of hygiene when preparing food, been shown how to carry and use a proper chef's knife and reminded ourselves of how to dispose of the different types of rubbish we make in the kitchen. Following a recipe, cleaning up and table manners when sitting down to share a meal were also practiced.
In the kitchen, Year 5 have roasted carrots and parsnips and made an orzo salad. Made a broadbean and buckwheat salad with homemade crackers, an appleslaw, cheese and zucchini quiche bread toast cups and meringues topped with chantilly cream and passionfruit
Year 4 have prepared curried eggs, cucumber sandwiches, moist apple muffins, tomato and garlic crostini and a sweetcorn and cherry tomato salad with fresh basil oil.

This week in the kitchen

These fabulous aprons that Karri made for the Garden to Table children have been very handy this week as the Year 5 children have been making pasta. Not only is she a great help volunteering in the kitchen with her son she is very clever on the sewing machine.

Squash and spinach rotolo, Spring vegetable lasagne and Pappardelle with minted green polpette and a herbed tomato sauce were made. The recipes can be found by clicking on the Year 5 recipes page.

Year 4 made a Raw cauliflower "tabouleh"packed with fragrant herbs, Flatbreads and a Broccoli and turnip stirfry with garlic and parsley.

Spring has sprung

Over the last few weeks we have been busy harvesting our beautiful spring crops and preparing them in many ways. The gardens were looking very beautiful for our Centenary and many people were amazed at the range of crops.Thank you to all the pupils and volunteers who work to keep this special part of our school growing so well. Many past pupils shared their memories of growing vegetables and flowers in garden patches in the area where our pool is now. Sweet peas, parsnips, carrots and radishes were favourite crops. Some had participated in this work this during the Second World War and others as part of their Manual Training until Remuera Intermediate opened. Only the Standard 5 and 6 ( year 7 and 8 ) boys got to garden and then they went to woodwork classes in Onehunga and later Newmarket. The girls did cooking and sewing classes and one lady remembered having to bring a shirt to school to practice ironing skills! In later years some teachers had little projects in patches until the Enviro Education Programme and Mrs Elmore started up a vegetable garden once again in the pool area.

Lots of different spring vegetables have been picked and eaten. We have been able to eat our first asparagus after waiting three years for the plants to mature. One spear can go a long way when sliced and add its unique flavour to a variety of dishes. As the children say so often " it tastes so different when we eat it straight from the garden". We are waiting for the broad bean harvest to take off and have already picked plant tips to add to stir fries and have previously used them in omelettes. Our sprouting broccoli and cauliflower have been producing well and will keep going for longer than the usual types that make a single head and then need to be pulled out.

Lots of edible flowers ( nasturiums, heartsease, borage, rocket, calendula,broad bean flowers,violets and rose petals) have been consumed in salads, spring rolls and as crystallised decorations. Herbs and a range of leaf vegetables like miners lettuce, mustard,sorrel, different lettuces, New Zealand spinach, various Asian greens, cabbages and of course silver beet have all been proudly presented to Mrs Crews in the kitchen. Carrots, radishes, turnips and parsnips are all growing well and often give us a laugh when pulled up to reveal surprisingly shaped roots. Also radish seed pods have become a popular nibbling treat and a spicy addition to salads and stir fries. We have left a few radishes to go to seed and they grow quite tall with pretty pink or white flowers that then turn into small pods that when eaten while still young and tender are crunchy with a mild radishy flavour.

We are starting the juggling act of what to plant that will survive the predicted long hot summer. Thank you to Terry Lord from Mt Carmel School who has once again given us beautiful tomato plants that he has propagated. I am aiming to plant pumpkins, cucumbers, courgettes, beans,sweet corn, and more root vegetables like kumara, potatoes, carrots etc. There has been a lot of mulching work in the junior orchard and in other garden areas. We will now work on spreading compost and worm castings from our bins on all the vegetable gardens and then topping that with pea straw etc to keep the soil moist and smother any weeds. The hens also look forward to compost spreading as many of their school friends share juicy worms etc with them.

August in the kitchen

We have had an abundance of citrus fruit delivered to our kitchen - grapefruit, lemons, oranges and mandarins. Thankyou!! We have used them to make lemon muffins, gluten free orange cookies, lemon slice, lemon and honey dressing, golden oat cookies with lemon zest and most of the Year 5's have practiced segmenting grapefruit.

Nami, our Japanese visitor and her son Hiromi helped out in the kitchen. They enjoyed it so much Nami offered to design a Japanese inspired menu for the Year 5 and she came in and helped out for a second week before heading back to Japan. We all loved the curry and carrot cake that used our colourful carrots fresh from the gardens and the carrot leaves as well. 

 

We have farewelled Larissa who has been a fabulous volunteer while she has been here in NZ and Bob celebrated a birthday!

Volunteer week

Last week during National volunteer Week we gained some new volunteers who have come via the Garden to Table Trust. These are people unrelated to our school who want to share their skills, knowledge and spare time with us. So thank you to Lorraine, Grace and Tony for all their support and enthusiasm. We have also been lucky to have "graduates " of our programme and school come in during their holidays to help out in the garden and kitchen. So great to see you all and please come back soon. A special thank you to grandparents ( both local and international !!) who have been in to work and have fun with their grandchildren and their classmates. Also of course our class parents, who we all look forward to seeing, who help make our Meadowbank School programme so special!

We have harvested a lot of herbs and vegetables and had fun digging for Jerusalem artichokes. Hunting for pine cones , holey kawakawa leaves and Wood Ear fungi in the Gully reminded us what a unique school we have - especially when the kereru (wood pigeon), fantails and tui are zooming past as we work.

There are broad beans and peas busy germinating in the greenhouse and school grown Kiwifruit and donated citrus ripening in the kitchen.
Lots of onions, cabbage, broccoli and mixed Asian leafy vegetables have been transplanted into gardens mulched to keep the soil warm and the weeds at bay.
The hens have been enjoying all the treats when people turn the compost and look forward to visiting again next term.
Thank you to Neville at Omni for our new gloves and tools which are supplied to Garden to Table Schools at a special price. The gloves were very handy in the junior orchard when we pruned our plum tree so that we will be able to reach the fruit rather than the birds.

We have used the pizza oven to make delicious baked apples, a pumpkin, silverbeet and parmesan tart, baked bananas (harvested from our garden) and calzone. Our dedicated pizza oven Grandparent, Bob was on hand for all sessions to oversee the oven.

Pot Sticker Dumplings with our wood ear funghi were a hit.

Thanks to parents who have donated grapefruit Room 29 and 30 made some super Citrus Marmalade. 

Next term we will be planting some fruit trees from Kelvin at Sunhill Garden Centre and feeding and pruning the rest of our school orchard.
For gardening tips in the holidays look up the Pod Gardening, Tui, and NZ Gardener websites, and of course the library has lots of great cooking and gardening books to get ideas from.
Happy holidays and we look forward to hearing about what you have been growing , cooking , eating and discovering over the holidays!

Pasta, Pasta, Pasta!

 In the garden the children have loved foraging for wood ear fungus and digging up jerusalem artichokes.

Year 5 have been making fresh pasta in the kitchen using the pasta machines. Groups made ravioli, tortellini and cannelloni. The tortellini were filled with pumpkin harvested from the garden and the cannelloni were stuffed with a delicious broadbean and silverbeet mixture. Broadbeans were harvested earlier in the year and we have plenty in our freezer. Silverbeet fresh from the garden along with sage, parsley, mint and sorrel.

Broadbean and silverbeet cannelloni

 Year 4 made a Versatile vegetable soup with parmesan twists which was enjoyed by all!