Category Archives: Kitchen Garden Foundation

Autumn leaves and green leaves

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The colours in the garden are heart-stoppingly beautiful. The glory vine has huge rose-pink leaves and next to it are four crabapple trees, all spangled in gold and around the corner the pomegranate tree has five beautiful fruit (its first crop).  My barrel of salad leaves is still producing exquisitely tender leaves that I harvest with scissors. I cut the outside leaves and each plant continues to grow. In five minutes I have a bowl full of frilly or crinkled or smooth leaves, each one around 10cm in length. Such a perfect salad just needs a few drops of extra virgin olive oil and a few flakes of salt. I add no acid at all.  The olive oil that was given to me last month by Lina and Tony Siciliano is very, very special.

Have been tweeting quite a bit and I think I am enjoying it. Still not sure about the etiquette of retweeting, or even how to do it to best effect, but am learning all the time. I do notice the blanket tweeting of political figures – is this in case they miss our attention by the blink of an eye, or the click of a finger?

Saw a great bit of footage after the first episode of Masterchef that followed the fortunes of several former contestants.  One was Fiona Inglis who is a kitchen specialist at Findon Primary School and she is doing a great job and the footage showed the children enjoying themselves in the garden and in the kitchen. I also attended a working bee at Stanmore Primary School near to Sydney airport, where thirty volunteers who work for one of our partners GPT Group had come to help create the beds for the  kitchen garden. The children had planted fruit trees, and enthusiastically showed me where they would free-range their chickens. In a few hours the volunteers had done an amazing job and the shape of the beds could be seen, where once had been bare ground.

We have been corresponding via Twitter with the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley California. Their schools are just starting up and soon we hope to create connections between the students themselves.

I have planted out crops for the winter months and will now sit back and watch, and scare away the white cabbage butterflies and the snails. I have a mixed arsenal. Copper ribbon along the edge of the bed, coffee grounds regularly sprinkled around the seedlings, twirly dangling things that are shiny and that scare the birds, and pet-friendly pellets near to the tiniest broccoli and spinach seedlings.   I have planted some chicory, some Tuscan kale, brussels sprouts (my first ever), more carrots, and small cauliflower and sprouting broccoli.

And I also have planted more of the beautiful sweet peas that I bought a year ago at the Chelsea Flower Show. They were spectacular and so highly-scented.

It has rained on and off all day and such weather always makes me think of soup. At dinner at Andrew McConnell’s Golden Fields a few nights ago a favourite was the chicken congee, a Chinese rice porridge that is a popular breakfast or anytime pick-me-up soupy dish and absolutely delicious.

Last week I made a pot of minestrone. This week it will be leek and potato, with the extra bonus of a large quantity of parsley to make it apple-green. I pick the parsley, give it a quick wash, then plunge it into boiling water for less than a minute, drain it and then blend it with the leeks and potato. And maybe the week after I will make my version of caldo verde that combines torn silverbeet or kale leaves, with potato and pieces of pork or spicy sausage.

I am really enjoying this autumn weather!

A new year

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Having returned to the city after two weeks at the beach, the pace of life has increased dramatically. Instead of that enjoyably bracing early morning walk along the ocean beach, there is  now a morning battle with ever-increasing traffic. Still I always look forward to a new year with plenty of new challenges.

My garden offers plenty of climbing beans and carrots and cucumbers and dwindling supplies of fat tomatoes and zucchini. The eggplant and capsicum bushes are laden, the basil bushes are still luxuriant after all the rain, and my crop of pink fir potatoes has been harvested and I must say was a bit sparse.

Whilst the warm and humid weather persists I have planted another crop of bush beans, more carrots and I broadcast mixed lettuce seed hoping to have a crop I can harvest with scissors whilst waiting for my self-seeded frilly lettuces to develop.

The most dramatic garden news is that I returned to find my crabapple trees and my sole quince tree invaded by brilliant green and gold parrots. I frightened them off to quickly gather about three kilos of crabapples but as soon as I went inside they returned and the rest went in a matter of days. I was really angry about the quince crop as the fruit was nowhere near ripe. I made a small batch of crabapple jelly and included the two unripe quinces left hanging amongst the gnawed cores, and a branch of my rose-scented geranium. I have now bought an electronic bird scarer that supposedly deters the birds (and possums it is claimed) by emitting a high-pitched frequency signal. We shall see if it works.

The Black Krim tomatoes were magnificent and I will save the seed to plant again next season.

School is back and the team at the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation are all hard at it developing new resources and activities and supporting our schools. We have welcomed seven more schools in Queensland this month and our total across the nation is now 266 schools. Training is very important and at our Learning Centre we offer sessions for kitchen and garden specialists and some for the general public.

I am to give a demonstration of how to make fruit-based desserts that maximise the fruit element and minimise cream and butter so that our kitchen specialists can be newly inspired.  Yesterday I  poached some peaches and made a jelly with some of the diluted pink syrup, and will suggest that an exquisitely wobbly jelly surrounded by a delicious combination of diced seasonal stone fruit is perfectly possible for the students, and by omitting any sugar with the fruit is a healthier option than the fruit they may have encountered in cans. Cutting the fruit salad is good for the knife skills too.

 

Lemongrassade and possum eggs

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The end of the school year is upon us. I squeezed in three visits in the last few weeks, two to schools in New South Wales, Bunghwahl and Forster ,and one in Victoria at Dunkeld.  All were memorable and it was a great way to finish the year. The enthusiasm of the students is a great energiser and over and over the staff at each school told me how much the program contributes to the life of the school and the differences it has made in so many ways.

We were welcomed to Forster (the largest of our schools in New South Wales with over 700 students)  with a smoking ceremony, and  a performance by the choir before a tour of both the extensive garden and the just-completed kitchen. A delicious morning tea had been prepared by the students and I tucked into hummus, various vegetable dips with grilled flatbreads, zucchini fritters with mint yoghurt and the most refreshing Lemongrassade.  One of the enthusiastic supporters of the kitchen garden, parent Amanda , surprised us by delivering a huge basket of local produce to our accommodation. Freshly-harvested oysters, freshly-caught snapper, salad greens, herbs, a lovely local cheese, some chocolates and a vase of home-grown roses. And special teas and cereals for breakfast. So special.  We sat on our balcony enjoying our banquet and listened to the soothing sound of the ocean slapping on the sand.

The next morning we visited tiny Bunghwahl as a complete contrast with just 42 students.  Once again we were warmly welcomed and we admired the very pretty garden where Nikki Dixon is both the kitchen and the garden specialist. She proudly led the tour of both the garden and the kitchen and told us a very funny story of how one morning the students found a possum sitting on freshly-laid eggs, and being very reluctant to allow anyone to collect the eggs. She has a wonderful photo to remember that incident. We watched an extraordinary display of the entire school population as they ‘Jumped rope for Heart health’ from the tiniest prep student to some very tall sixth graders.   And again we had a lovely lunch of stuffed eggs (from the chickens), leek tarts, home-made yoghurt, beetroot salad and a  leafy salad .

Both New South Wales schools included semi-tropical crops in their garden such as bananas and pineapples and lemongrass and chilli bushes.

I went to say Happy Holidays to our Kitchen Specialist extraordinaire Desley Insall at Collingwood College and her Wednesday team of volunteers, most of whom have been coming every week for nearly nine years.  I couldn’t stay for long but I left with a gift of honeycomb from suburban Surrey Hills, brought in by Jill, one of the star volunteers, whose husband tends hives in their garden. How delicious it was, the honey flooded my mouth with sweetness and perfume. I had forgotten what freshly-harvested honey tasted like. This was an important reminder.

And then I launched the program at another small school, at Dunkeld with towering and imposing Mt.Sturgeon in the background. The project has been embraced by the whole community, many of whom have signed on to a watering roster to care for the garden over the long school holidays. Irrigation will be installed in the new year.  The children have all adopted a tree in the extensive orchard and accept the responsibility for caring for this tree.  Lunch included a rosemary and potato pizza, a lovely salad with roasted pumpkin, green leaves, seeds and cauliflower, some parsnip crisps and a raspberry muffin. On each table was a big bowl of locally-gathered blackberries – donated by someone in the community, as well as bunches of country flowers that were absolutely beautiful.

I returned to Melbourne, ready for some downtime myself but feeling happy , knowing that our schools are forging ahead and that all that the Foundation does is truly appreciated.

 

 

Sweeping into Summer

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An excerpt from ‘Stephanie’s latest’, first published on the Kitchen Garden Foundation website. The full text is available here.

It is such a busy time in the garden, cleaning up after the last of the brassicas (although I still have sprouting broccoli to pick) and planting out eggplant, sweet peppers and zucchini or squash. And of course basil. Every available bit of free space in my front beds is taken up with magnificent self-seeded lettuce. Even though I share with my friends it is impossible to eat it fast enough. I am still waiting for my beans and cucumber to start growing strongly up the bamboo tepees I have waiting for them.

Like all gardeners I have been delighted by the great rain we have had over the last few weeks. One downside is that the snails in my garden have taken over my empty bamboo teepees for their own personal gymnasium. I am disposing of them ruthlessly.

As always the last few weeks of the year seem to start speeding up and here we are nearly at the end of another school year, and already deep in planning mode for 2012. We hope that every school has a water plan to carry them over the vacation so that students will return to a bumper harvest. We may be in for a hot summer this year so all gardeners will be thinking of the best way to protect their gardens over the long holidays. Mulch, mulch, mulch I hear you all say. And maybe some of the fruit trees should be netted to frustrate the birds.

Some schools will have some crops ready to pick just before going on holiday. It is rare for any berries to make it to the kitchen – the perfect treat to enjoy in the garden. But maybe cherries or early apricots or nectarines, or even a first crop of tomatoes. Fruit can be poached and the chunks frozen, or it can be turned into a purée, or bottled. Tomatoes can be cooked to make a very fast tomato sauce, which is a fabulous resource to come back to.

Once again the messages we are promoting have proved irresistible to a wide range of media and many schools have featured on television and in print. I have spoken to a very wide range of audiences. But the most pleasurable moments in my year have been visiting schools and watching and listening to the students. Enthusiasm, excitement and pride in achievement are what I see and hear, wherever I go.

 

 

Spring brings sunshine and showers

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An excerpt from ‘Stephanie’s latest’ first published on the Kitchen Garden Foundation website. The full text is available here.

I have been travelling again. I had the opportunity to travel with my elder daughter to exotic Jamaica, last visited by me over forty years ago. Whilst you were all freezing and enjoying the generous rainfall, I was sweltering in 30+ temperatures with high humidity. I slept under a mosquito net, which was a different experience, and swam almost every day in the balmy ocean.

It was mango season, as well as the season for tiny sweet bananas and papaya and small delicious pineapples, so you can imagine what I had for breakfast each day. As we travelled over the mountains past tiny settlements along very bumpy and stony roads, we often stopped at roadside food stalls or fruit stands. Favourite dishes were goat curry served with rice and peas cooked in coconut milk, and jerked pork and jerked chicken, served with bammy cakes, made from grated cassava root. The national dish of Jamaica is ackee and saltfish, which was always on offer at breakfast time. The ackee fruit looks like scrambled egg and tastes a little like avocado. It is a fascinating tree with capsicum-sized pinky-red fruits that burst open when ripe to display shiny black seeds (inedible) and the creamy flesh. Unless the fruits have opened naturally, it is said that the fruit is poisonous.

Once back in Australia it was off to Brisbane to officially launch the expansion of the grants by the Queensland Government with the Queensland Minister for Education Hon. Cameron Dick. Minister Dick really enjoyed his tour of the garden, and I loved tasting a variety of spidery-red kale that, as one student told me, tasted like cooked potato. And it did too! In the kitchen we watched the capable students of Bulimba SS serve up their pumpkin bruschetta and tomato bruschetta. Both were excellent.

And then it was off to Western Australia, firstly to attend the Truffle Festival at Mundaring, half an hour from Perth, before visiting several schools over the next few days. And did it rain! All the Western Australians were grinning from ear to ear as the state has been in drought for a long time. We sympathised but we did get very wet, several times! Both East Maddington PS and Palmyra PS sent students to the Truffle Festival, and Bertram PS set up and displayed a magnificent Harvest Table. The demonstration was very successful, and the students received rousing applause.

It is always exciting to visit Kitchen Garden Schools for the first time, and meet the students and the Specialists. Several of the new kitchens were very colourful, with cupboards and benchtops finished in bright colours. I met a hen called Stephanie. I now understand wicking gardens properly and I enjoyed a delicious Caesar salad and a potato & herb frittata at one school, Desley’s Mum’s potato & silver beet curry at another, a beetroot & cumin seed dip with flat bread at another, and I missed out on a stunning lunch prepared by the students at Bertram PS as I had an appointment with the Western Australian Minister for Education. I was told later about the rhubarb & apple oat crumble to finish!

My own garden is between seasons. The peas are still growing. Both golden and red beetroot are ready for harvesting. The frilly oakleaf lettuces are growing well, as are several green leafy plants such as rainbow chard, collard greens and sprouting broccoli. The broad beans are in flower in one of my raised beds and are so tall I may have to stand on a stepladder to harvest them. As I write the almond tree is in full bloom, the first of the edible trees to flower, although the peach and nectarine are just a few days away.

With the first spring sunshine I am eager to start sowing some seeds in my small hothouse. And it is a good time to plant some more leek seedlings (deeply to maximise the white shank), and to direct-sow some carrots and turnips.

I was so inspired by the very beautiful Chelsea Flower Show in London earlier in the year (and encouraged by the end of the drought), that I am having my own front garden replanted as a small herbaceous border. Cannot wait to see those foxgloves, and campanula, and the new fragrant roses, in bloom. I have to be patient as it will probably take two years for the ‘new look’ to settle in. My venerable lemon tree has had a mighty cutback in an attempt to eradicate the leaf gall, and it looks a bit crestfallen. Left a big tub of lemons, more than a hundred, outside the front gate and invited all the neighbours to help themselves. Had several thank you notes pushed into the letterbox.

Now that the soil has warmed up, it is time to add a dressing of Rocket Fuel. And it is also time to plant disease-free seed potatoes. Plant more broccoli and more salads and more carrots. Try a different salad variety this season.

My purple-podded and yellow-podded peas are such fun. They do need a strong support of at least two metres tall. And even then some snails attacked them more than a metre from the ground. As I have just six plants there is not often more than a good handful ready to pick every couple of days, so I drop the shelled peas into pasta, and simmer them alongside a sautéed piece of veal schnitzel. The broad beans are much more generous. I am enjoying them every which way – raw crushed with parmesan and olive oil on grilled bread; quickly blanched and double-peeled and added to almost any spring dish. And in a few weeks I will start my first climbing beans.

Happy spring everyone.