First up, my apologies for not updating the blog for a couple of weeks.  People from the school community will know that the last couple of weeks have been very hectic preparing for the annual concert, then we went into our spring vacation so the blog was put aside.
Even though this was going on, the garden and the kitchen did not get neglected.


We have spent time re-arranging the hale bales into their final gardens and staking up the tomato plants and thinning out some of the other crops.
Spinach is ready to be cut and the snow peas are coming along well. The carrots are almost ready to pick.

There are plans already to extend the size of the garden. We are looking at having a second garden, that will be a dedicated vegetable garden.

As crops are picked in the existing garden, that area will be devoted to herbs, flowering crops and ornamental vines such as gourds that can be grown and children in the lower school will be able to use them as musical instruments

In the kitchen we had two solid weeks of cooking with the Year 5 French classes and the Year 6 Japanese classes.

The Year 5's spent their time cooking crepes and sitting down and enjoying eating their results. These classes were the first to use the kitchen on mass and the end results were extremely pleasing.
The  facilities and the layout of the kitchen worked better than our expectations. With 28 children and 7 adults in the space, there was no feeling of being cramped or overcrowded.

The Year 6 children cooked Sushi the following week. This had more preparation time and was more complex to assemble, but the children really showed how talented they are and made some very good looking sushi rolls. They made two types, one was a ham and cucumber and the other was a chicken, mayo and lettuce.

All this wouldn't have been possible if we didn't have the support from our parents, both mums and dads, who came in and helped the children. Thanks to all of you.

Next week we have the pizza oven arriving. We are building a secure lockable area to place it. We are hoping to start the construction of both in week 4.

For those people that are reading this and not in contact with members of the school community, the other piece of great news is that the school applied for, and received a $60,000.00 grant from the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation. (If you would like to read more about the Stepahanie Alexander Foundation go www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au ) This grant is run in conjunction with the Queensland Government and is to be used over the next 3 years to get our gardens and kitchen fully established and the program integrated into the Burpengary school's curriculum.

Until next week stay safe and enjoy life,

Ross T