A new year begins ...

06-02-2012

Welcome back to all kitchen gardeners. At the Foundation office we have moved house and what a task that was. Every Melbourne staff member packed up her possessions and our Admin Manager Lucy did a Herculean job of directing the physical move, not to mention the transferring of our phones and all electronic systems. There were a few blackout days - hopefully you were all on holiday and not trying to make contact in mid-January.

My own garden coped relatively well with the first heatwave of January. It brought on the ripening of tomatoes of all shapes and sizes and colours.

The capsicums are changing colour and the eggplant bushes are in flower but not yet producing. My second crop of carrots is coming along and I still have a few left to pull from the original planting. Beans have been successful, both slender bush beans and a new climbing variety called Kingston Gold that produces round yellow beans that are up to fourteen centimetres long. My favourite frilly lettuces were sunburnt, whereas the young cos stood up to the searing temperatures much better. My very first miniature watermelon plant has spread to cover a metre in all directions and I am inspecting it daily, watching as the tiny bulges develop - I hope - into juicy melons. And the Lebanese cucumber vine has been very generous.

I made several batches of pesto in mid-January. Hopefully this will be an early task for many kitchen garden classes as the basil bushes will be luxuriant and buzzing with bees.

I have peaches and nectarines ripening all at once so will have a grand poaching day. Some of the poached fruit will be frozen in convenient takeaway-sized containers to make upside-down cakes, crumbles, clafoutis or tart fillings. And some will be delicious on my breakfast muesli.

I have had fun compiling quite a long list of fruity desserts, each of which can be made in around thirty minutes or less. They are all delicious and the resource is available to Kitchen Garden Schools on the website. I will also be demonstrating a few favourite fruity treats at our Learning Centre on Monday 27 February at 1.30pm. Jacqui and Karyn from the Learning & Support Delivery team have put together a great program of public workshops and the full list can be viewed here.

It is more and more obvious that our Program is regarded by our principal funders - government - as an important preventative health program, which delivers both new skills and new understandings of food choices that are, at the same time, delicious and healthy. Part of our ongoing responsibility is to develop menus that are in line with current guidelines, without compromising our essential vision of educating children about the infinite joys of fresh, seasonal food, from planting the seed to the pleasure of enjoying this food at a table with others.

I do love a New Year. There will be wonderful highlights and undoubtedly challenges. Schools, don't forget to forward your positive stories to your Project Officer - we do love to hear them and they are an important element of our Kitchen Garden Program.  

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