June antics

In the kitchen we have been learning how to wash and prepare all the wonderfully fresh vegetables and herbs harvested from the garden. Our knife skills have been put to the test as we have been busy preparing a green herb pilaf, braised vegetables (bok choy, rainbow beet, choko, kale) served in lettuce leaves, persimmon bliss balls and a winter salad with toasted pumpkin seeds and a honey and lemon dressing. Roasted pumpkin and silverbeet calzone, spiced baked apples, silverbeet pizza and margherita pizza with feta and kawakawa herb pesto were cooked in the outdoor pizza oven.
Bananas from our tree were used to make icecream that was served with apple and feijoa crumble. The sorrel pesto and pea pasta was a hit and we enjoyed slicing choko to make a choko and cheesy parsley bake. Lots of fun was had preparing these wonderful dishes as well as sitting down together to eat them. Delicious!

A huge thank you to Bob Wright who is still helping us, even tending the pizza oven in torrential rain. Thank you to everyone who comes in to share the Garden to Table experience. Hooray for volunteers.

Also thank you to people who help by sharing extra produce, collecting coffee grounds, etc and now donating a marvellous food dehydrator. We are busy peeling, slicing and drying persimmons from the Masters' garden ,which usually end up as bird food. They will then be used in recipes over the year.

This month has been focussed on setting the gardens up for winter and feeding and mulching any bare soil. We have made some fantastic compost since the beginning of term and also found that all last year's autumn leaves bagged up and left under the trees had turned into beautiful leaf mold. Classes have been busy sifting the compost pile and spreading this onto garden beds and sneaking worms to the hens who are back for their weekly visits.  Before the holidays arrive there will be a compost heap rebuilding session with lots of comfrey leaves, coffee grounds, grass clippings and general garden waste layered with cardboard, shredded paper and tree mulchings in the hope of cooking up some more free sustainable fertiliser for our gardens.

It has been exciting to watch how quickly self sown plants have germinated after the compost has been spread and an opportunity to learn how to recognise edible vegetable seedlings we want to save.
The sorrel pasta recipe earlier in the term caused one family to have a long shopping trip in the hunt of fresh sorrel. For all those who would like to try this recipe at home we will be potting up sorrel plants to sell on the school plant stall. A very easy plant to grow and an interesting sour lemony flavour. We will have to remember to pot up unusual vegetables for everyone to try out!
Great to finally have chokos to harvest after years of trying to get them growing at school. We have used the stem shoots  ( Dragon's whiskers in Thailand) in stir fries along with the fruit. Eating those tips might be a good way to keep the vines under control! Amazing to see how the chokos grow from almost pinhead size to large shiny fruit in just a few weeks.
The broad beans are up out of the soil and we have also sown or planted beetroot, carrots, kale, radishes, leeks, garlic, lettuce, peas, shallots, bok choy, edible chrysanthemums, collard greens/ Dalmatian cabbage ,daffodils and Sparaxis (for spring flowers). We are experimenting with various types of sprouting broccoli and cauliflower which can keep growing lots of little heads for a year or two.
There are also citrus (lemons and mandarins) beginning to ripen and we have some around the school but are always very grateful for any extras. So it has been a month of soil building, sign building (so everyone knows what our plants are)  painting pickets to finish our fence, garden tending, harvesting , planning and team building. It is great to hear children shriek with excitement about giant worms they have dug up, as this shows that all the composting and mulching is really making a difference to the fertility and structure of our soil. It is also marvellous to hear children sharing their gardening experiences and to see the way groups work together as a team to complete a task.

May

Term 2 has started and we are so happy to have Mrs Masters back as she has been unwell since the end of last year. Although a bit wobbly on her feet, she is right back into it and the gardens are back on track. Thanks to Bob, our class teachers, volunteers and the Year 4 and 5 children who worked so hard while she was away to keep things going.
Much work was needed on the composts and the children have been using clever sieve systems to separate. Mulching and clearing of weeds has been happening and it is looking fantastic down by the greenhouse.

In the kitchen we have made an apple and date chutney, sticky coconut and feijoa muffins, a choko fruit curry with mint raita, spiced pumpkin muffins, curried vegetable fritters, roasted pumpkin hummus and broadbean dip.

Planting and pizzas

Gardeners have been busy planting silverbeet, radishes, leeks and spring onions and fertlising with sheep pellets. Potatoes, black boy peaches, fennel seeds and tomatoes have been harvested as well as mint, parsley, rosemary and thyme.
In the kitchen we have been having loads of fun preparing pizza dough and using our outdoor oven to make wood fired pizzas. Beetroot and onion, kumara and rosemary, peach and custard, a pumpkin and herb calzone, courgette and herb and an apple crumble pizza.

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!