More garden progress



Two rainwater tanks sitting in position!



Our water tanks are now in position in the garden! We have a photographic time-line of our garden on display in our gym – when you look at the progress that has occurred since May it is really impressive. Many thanks must go to Michael and Craig for doing so much of this work, but also of course to Rotary Bellerive who are building our chicken house and to all the many staff, parents and students who have also contributed to the workload.

And in the kitchen it we have doubled our baking options by installing a new oven. It is the same type as the one we had previously, but is a double oven. Up until now we have had to use classroom ovens as well as our kitchen one during most sessions. It has made a huge difference to us to be able to do all of our baking in our own kitchen. Many thanks to Mark for organising this for us.

The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation Newsletter was published this week and we were delighted to read their comment about us with regard to our contributions to their web-site called The Shared Table - this is what they wrote:

We would like to specially commend the Southern Support School in Howrah, Tasmania – throughout 2012 we have been inspired by the creativity of the students and staff at this dynamic school.

 We are continuing to work in our small garden too - it will probably provide us with our harvests for the first half of next term as planting in the new garden won't start until January or February. Molesworth Environmental Centre gave us a lovely selection of tomato plants this week:

• Grosse Lisse
• Earle of Edgecombe
• June Pink
• Kellogg's Breakfast
• Wonderlight
• Rouge de Marmande
• Black Cherry
• Tommy Toe
• Black Russian

Cody was a great help with planting the tomato seedlings

We have a good crop of salad greens at the moment - Jacob visited us again and showed that he is going to be a real asset when he joins us next year:

Leeks, radishes, salad greens, carrots and coriander



This week we cooked:                                                                          

Cauliflower Fritters

Leafy Green Salad

Broccoli Cheese

Thai Carrot Salad

Potato Gnocchi with Silverbeet and Ricotta

We seem to say it frequently, but this really was one of our better menus!!

The cauliflower fritters seemed to vanish before they even got to the table!



Mixing the batter for the fritters









For some reason we took fewer photos this week, perhaps we were too busy enjoying ourselves! Here is a photo of Ellen grating cheese for the gnocchi:

A skill that has developed well this year has been the use of our hands to mix foods - it has resulted in us learning to be very gentle with food. At the start of the year our leafy green salads tended to be a little bruised by the time they reached the table - now they are just about perfect!!




Very gentle hand mixing by Jobe





Rochelle and Jobe made a delicious leafy green salad



Jobe carried a bowl of water to the table to wash the salad leaves

Getting ready to start

Next week will be our final week of kitchen and garden classes (during the final week of term we will be cleaning, sorting, tidying, planning and planting!). We decided to do something slightly different for our last week and so sent this note to staff:

"

Dear ....................

Next week we are going to have a bit of fun in the kitchen (we hope!!).

Our menu is set out below:

Victorious Vegetables

Perfect Pizza

Pleasing Pasta

Ripper Rice

Super Salad

Your group will be cooking …………………………….and you are absolutely free to choose what you would like to cook so long as it fits the title:

     You can arrive on the day, check out what we have available to cook and come up with a recipe - OR

      you can choose a recipe in advance and tell me by Friday  what ingredients you would like - OR

      you can tell me by Friday if you would like me to choose a recipe for you

Please do not stress about this, any of the options are fine!"

We have already received some great recipes that staff want to cook - many with a Christmas theme. Watch out for the Christmas Tree Pasta that Nadine is planning!!