Potting sunflowers

We have some amazing pots made from coconut husks that Greg bought in for us to use for seedlings.

We madly filled them with soil and planting sunflower seeds in weeks 5 and 6.

Here they are ready for seeds in the shade and shelter of the old fig tree.

We planted the seeds into them and put them into the sun.

Sophie and Lucy have been watering the sunflowers and other plants if it doesn't rain. So has Mr Koko. It takes lots of care for everything to grow. Thanks! 

After two weeks the seeds have germinated and are beginning to sprout!

Room 6s garden glory

Over the weeks we've kept our gardens in top condition. This is our herb and seedling area

We've weeded. We've weeded a lot! 

We've grown a bed of mustard so the phytonutrients given off by the roots kill harmful fungi that sprouted in the bed.

We've transplanted plants that are overcrowded, like our beans.

The strawberries had gone mad!

We've separated the strawberry plants that have grown from the runners while repotting the baby plants.

We started to raise seedlings that we will thin out and plant in our garden beds. These are lettuce sprouts.

We also planted pansies around the base of one of the butterfly plant gardens to add some spring colour! 

Room 6 Cooking in the kitchen

Today we harvested the rainbow silverbeet also know as chard. 

Sometimes we eat vegetables by themselves. Usually this is when we are least likely to like something. Often vegetables that have a taste we don't like can be put into other things to enhance the taste and nutritional quality of that food. 

Mrs Mardell's first idea was to make tasty little treats for our lunchbox, but we just don't have time. You could easily make the recipe below at home for lunch with left over rice from dinner. They are full of protein to build body tissues, carbohydrates that are the 'petrol' for the body and goodness from the silverbeet. 

http://onehandedcooks.com.au/recipe/gluten-free-rice-patties/ 

What we really made...

Silverbeet sautée with feta and currants

Heat olive oil in a fry pan till hot. (You can sautée 1-2 cloves of crushed garlic).

Add one or two bunches of silverbeet or a variety of silverbeet that has been finely cut. 

Add a teaspoon of vegetable stock paste (there's plenty of liquid from the vegetables).

Cook stirring until it begins to soften then add 2 -4 Tablespoons dried currants and some sage from the garden of you have it.

Remove from heat and grumble feta over the top. 

This is the remains...

Serve and eat. 

This is actually one of Mrs Mardell's recipes she made up that she has with roast chicken or chorizo.

For more yummy nutritious recipes and lunch box ideas to make at home go to : onehandedcooks.com.au

Kale chips made by Room 6

This week we started off by weeding our garden beds.

Then we got into the good stuff. 

Cooking kale chips! 

We harvested some of the kale planted by Room 7.

We harvested two types of kale by picking the outer leaves of our plants. 

Mrs Mardell had brought along a third type of kale. 

Use the chart below to identify what kale we used to make our kale chips.

We washed the kale and dried it.

 We gently peeled the leaf away from the tough stalk. We kept the leaves and composted the stalks. Breaking up the woody stalks makes it easier for them to break down in the compost heap.

We massaged olive oil onto the leaves and placed them onto trays to bake.

We ground the salt from salt crystals. We put the leaves onto a tray and sprinkled salt on the top. 

 Then we cooked the kale chips until they were crispy. 

 YUM YUM YUM!
 Click here for the Kale chip recipe!

Incidentally we also learnt :

How to wipe down a table

How to fold gardening gloves back together 

What food waste to compost

Where salt comes from