Salad Days are here ...

While the four raised beds continued to flourish outside in the garden this week, Art lessons for Form 1 and 2 allowed the children time to decorate the covers of their Garden Journals using wonderfully decorative material prints. They really are going to provide an excellent  record of their garden adventure.

At last  -  pupils were able to enjoy huge platefuls of their own salad leaves at lunchtime today.  The queue stretched the length of the Dining Hall and everyone tasted a wide selection of their own produce : which they themselves had picked from the beds this morning.  Kale, Tatsoi, Giant Red Mustard, Land Cress, Corn Salad, Pak Choi - the list goes on. It was really good to see that everyone had a healthy appetite : and a healthy curiosity about the different varieties on offer. 

A huge thank you to the Lower Sixth boys who gave up their lunchtime to help serve at the Salad Bar, without them it would have been impossible.

The Pre-Prep children were the first to arrive, and encouraged by Mr Payne, placed a variety of leaves on their plates. It wasn't long before the bell went and the rest of the school arrived and enthusiastically piled salad leaves on their plates alongside their jacket potato meal .

Pupils also had the chance to rate their favourites on the 'Tasting Sheets' provided. Here are the results of the votes :

1st Place went to Lillian Lettuce. ("fresh, tasty, nice texture, super, scrummy, I liked this as it had a caterpillar in it!")  Score 22

2nd Place was taken by Diana Lettuce  ('crunchy, great,quite strong and two smileys')  Score 15

3rd Place went to Little Gem Lettuce  ("mild, mostly yummy, like popcorn, yummy yum,")  Score 14

4th Place was chosen as Spinach Perpetual  ("a little bitter, quite good, a little bit sour, cool, sweet")  

Score 13

5th Place was a tie between a number of salads including Rainbow Chard, Corn Salad, Land Cress, Tatsoi, Mizuna, Pak Choi, and Red Russian Kale. These  produced a variety of positive and negative responses including "weird, amazing, awesome, love Russia, didn't really like it but I ate it!  Score 10

6th Place was Giant Red Mustard and Pak Choi. (Thanks to Mr Cowdrey for his jokes here!) Other comments included " Spicey , loved it, bitter"  Score 9

7th Place was won by Cavolo Nero Kale where comments were divided some thinking it "too strong" while others said "amazing" Score 6

8th Place was awarded to .... the Chocolate Brownie ( Mr Cowdrey again!) and Alex - who only liked the bread! Score 1

Our sincere thanks to the team at Waitrose in Esher, who supplied us with hundreds of brown and wholemeal rolls and a variety of salad dressings today in support of our participation in  the RHS Campaign for Gardening in Schools. 

In ICT, pupils in  2S designed posters this week to advertise the Salad Bar - and these were displayed around the school.

The fine weather since the start of term had led to a really healthy crop of leaves  : and hopefully there'll be plenty more before Christmas.  Plus, there are still carrots, cabbages, spring onions and numerous other vegetables and herbs still to enjoy.

A reminder that we break up for half-term next week, and if you could volunteer to help  to keep an eye on the vegetable patch please get in touch with Mrs Bawden.