Best Shared Table photos: a 2018 retrospective

We’ve been looking back at all the fabulous photos posted during 2018 by kitchen garden schools and centres on our Shared Table online community, and have collated our favourites.

We hope these images bring you the same joy the Kitchen Garden Foundation team feels when we scroll through the Shared Table and see heart-warming photos of students growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing fresh, seasonal delicious food.

The Northern Territory’s Nyangatjatjara College, located near Uluru in Central Australia, wondered if they had bred the most remote chicken hatchling in Australia when they posted this adorable photo.

Kingswood Primary School, in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, posted some great photos this year of students celebrating international cuisine with a ‘Food around the world’ theme for their kitchen classes.

The photos posted by Tasmania’s Moonah Primary School always grab our attention on the Shared Table, whether it’s a stunning close-up of fresh produce from their garden, a delicious dish made in a kitchen class, or enthusiastic students.

We loved seeing photos of the children at Californian Gully Kindergarten – in Maryborough, Victoria – doing lots of hands-on cooking and gardening activities this year. They made pasta from scratch, using kale from their garden and eggs from their chickens Sunshine and Featherfoot.

Woomera Area School, in remote South Australia, was named our ‘Best New Shared Table User of the Year’ in 2018 for posting more than 50 times. We were fascinated to see what the school could grow in the rich red earth of the area, and how they protected their plants from the hungry local rabbits.

We particularly enjoyed reading the observations of kitchen and garden classes written by the secondary students at Geelong’s Clonard College in Victoria, which accompanied photos they posted on the Shared Table.

Every year we see photos on the Shared Table of beaming students holding giant zucchinis, such as this happy pair from Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School Kooringal in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. Zucchinis this large would have provided lots of seeds to save for next year’s crop.

Making fresh pasta is always a hit with children, as you can see from the excitement on the faces of these students from Port Fairy Consolidated School, in south-western Victoria.

Pleased potato harvesters from Lindisfarne Anglican Grammar School, in Tweed Heads,  New South Wales. This bumper harvest was transformed into a delicious potato, onion & celery soup.

The vibrant and mouth-watering photos posted by Riddells Creek Primary School, in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges, always stand out in the Shared Table feed.

Students at Mount Molloy State School, in far north Queensland, were all smiles as they prepared multi-coloured corn, which they had grown and then dried for popping.

Students at Western Australia’s Margaret River Primary School created a human chain in their kitchen garden to move 80 seedling pots in 5 minutes! The school grew a dazzling array of plants in 2018 including: borage, lemon balm, lemongrass, tamarillo, tomatoes, raspberries, spinach, figs, sunflowers, spaghetti squash and peppermint.

It was lovely to see photos posted by Perth’s Marmion Avenue Community Child Care Centre of children planting snow pea seeds, nurturing the plants and then harvesting the fresh peas.

This vibrant beetroot risotto was cooked by the students at Terrigal Primary School, in Gosford, New South Wales. The school also posted some creative photos of students making a human mandala to ‘worship’ their broad bean harvest.

The Foundation team was thrilled to see photos posted on the Shared Table of students taking part in cooking and gardening activities at St Anthony's International School in Dilli, Timor-Leste.

• If your school or centre is part of the kitchen garden community, but doesn’t know how to access or post on the Shared Table, please just contact our friendly Support Team on 13000 SAKGF (13000 72543) or support@kitchengardenfoundation.org.au
• Not a part of the kitchen garden community? Find out how your school or centre can dig into pleasurable food education on the Kitchen Garden Classroom membership page.