Let your kids be a part of the planting, watering, watching, digging, cleaning, cutting, cooking AND eating and they will see the entire food process!

This year we decided to start a very small garden. We began with tomatoes, herbs, arugula, and lettuce. After a few weeks, I read that you could plant whole potatoes and decided to plant some. Just this week, we decided it was time to check on our potatoes.

When we originally planted our potatoes, we took one organic, red-skinned potato, cut it into four pieces and dropped them in the ground (actually, my little one dropped them in). This week, more than three months later, we pulled more than 20 red-skinned potatoes out of the ground. The activity was fun, entertaining (each time I found a potatoes in the ground, my little girl would squeal in excitement then place it in her collection bucket), educational, and uplifting.

She remembered when we planted them just a few months ago and felt so much pride for those potatoes anytime someone came to our house. She would show them the garden and gravitate to the potatoes that she had planted. She loved watching the flowers bloom when they came, and watching them die (when the summer sun got too intense). Often times she would call them tomatoes (since the two plants look so similar and the two words are very close in a toddler's vocabulary). Come to find out, the two plants are actually from the same family, so she's even smarter than I thought!

Once we finished digging up all those potatoes, we headed inside to prepare supper. I found another great use for those old toothbrushes!

We scrubbed, slices, and baked with fresh rosemary (from our front yard) and ate with our local dinner. The greatest part about this was that my little girl and I were in the entire process together - from planting to eating we participated together and partook of the work together. It actually reminds me of "The Little Red Hen."

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