She’s Australia’s foodie fairy godmother, and in our books Stephanie Alexander can do no wrong.

Proving her right to self-appointed “champion of the quality and diversity” of our nation’s good grub, Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Foundation has changed the landscape of the schoolyard forever.

Growing, harvesting, preparing, sharing is the motto of this project and hopefully one day a way of life for a new generation.

In 2001 Collingwood College’s concrete-slab play area was turned into a bountiful vegetable garden. Corn, carrot, tomatoes and lettuce were brought in alongside an education program designed to help our happy little vegemites appreciate the bounty of the earth.

Each week kids spend 40mins maintaining the garden and an hour and a half in the kitchen, learning how to cook what they cultivate. Forget joining the PTA, volunteering on the weeding roster is the new way to get involved.

Growing, harvesting, preparing, sharing is the motto of this project and hopefully one day a way of life for a new generation. Alexander is well on the way with this plan of world (or at least Australian playground) domination, with more than 130 schools across the country taking part.

Grown-ups are already in love with her cookbooks but now the kids are getting involved too; expect them to start requesting Alexander’s recipes for vegetable pie or garden salad.

Where: Collingwood College, Cnr Cromwell St & McCutcheon Way, Collingwood Vic. (03) 9417 6681, www.collingwood.vic.edu.au or www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au

Did you know: Kitchen gardens are proven to promote exercise, teamwork, social skills and self-esteem.