Children develop a taste for good food when they grow and cook their own, writes Stephanie Alexander.

Much of my time over the past six years has been spent establishing the wonderful kitchen garden at Collingwood College. At the school, every child in years 3 to 6 spends 45 minutes a week tending the organic fruit and vegetable garden and then 11/2 hours cooking delicious "real" food with the harvest. They then sit down and eat with classmates, teachers and the volunteers who have become essential to the program.

Throughout these six years, I have been approached almost weekly by other schools, parents and community groups, all wanting to know more. The questions they asked mostly related to the nuts and bolts. How did it happen? Where did the money come from? How did we convince the staff that the project was important? And as the years rolled past and the garden and kitchen became more established, the most common question became, "How can we do it too?"

So with the book Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids, we set out to write a realistic blueprint that we hoped would inspire others to contemplate a kitchen garden in their own school.
I believe the earlier children are helped to experience all aspects of good food in an enjoyable way, the more likely it is they will develop an interest and appreciate the wide range of textures and flavours that are available to everyone. But they need to be encouraged and they need practical skills.

So our students know about worms, compost and heirloom varieties, and they also know about the surprising range of salad leaves and how to stuff freshly made pasta with ricotta and silverbeet, how to saute and how to chop with proper chefs' knives. Children can do most things as long as there is a bit of sensible adult supervision where sharp shovels, secateurs or knives and boiling water are concerned.

Every recipe in the book has been cooked by a student aged 8 to 12 and, just as importantly, has been enjoyed by those same students.