Pip's plantings and winter pesto

Date posted: 30 June 2016

Have you stopped by the Garden lately? A crazy number of plants has been sent down from our pals at the Mount Lofty Botanic Garden Nursery the place is looking great! Here's what else has been happening this past month.

Pip’s planting

Our gardener Pip has been finishing off our winter plantings. In fact, our Garden reads like the list of ingredients in a delicious stir-fry, with spring onions, pak choy (including a red variety), Tokyo Bekana cabbage, Chinese broccoli, choy sum and coriander. Pip has also planted a lot of brassicas - Sicilian purple Cauliflower, Cabbage red Drumhead, purple and green sprouting broccoli, Kohlrabi, the very pretty Red Bore Kale and - Pip’s favourite - ruby brussel sprouts.

Winter pesto

Our basil's now long gone, so we’ve been making a winter pesto. Have you tried making pesto using whatever herbs you have to hand? The kids still love it. One of our visitors dipped nearly 10 carrot pieces in it and, at one stage, had a piece of carrot in each hand! In fact, we think the kids might even like the winter pesto better than the basil pesto. We’re using all sorts of leaves in our mix - tarragon, pineapple sage, thyme, perennial (sacred) basil, parsley and rosemary. If you want to try it at home, grab a few herb leaves from your garden and crush them in a mortar and pestle with sunflower seeds, parmesan cheese, a tiny pinch of salt and oil.

Busy Little Sprouts

As we enter into the last weeks of the Little Sprouts Kitchen Garden Visiting Program before the school holidays, we look back on a very busy first half of the year. We’ve had over 1,800 little visitors attending our garden sessions. We hope you're all still gardening and tasting new food at kindy and at home. Our program is booked for the rest of the year and we’re looking forward to welcoming hundreds more little gardeners (and cooks) to our garden.

Want to find out more about the Little Sprouts Kitchen Garden and get tips and recipes delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for the Little Sprouts e-newsletter.

Think kids deserve to grow up learning where their food comes from? Find out how YOU can help us educate kids about healthy produce and heirloom varieties.