What’s for dinner?

One of my greatest pleasures on the farm is witnessing my children’s experience of the garden. They inhabit the garden with confidence and comfort, as they snack on sorrel leaves, Long Tom tomatoes, and red peppers. Jonah eats cabbages and peppers like apples. Noah has an eye for what’s ready to harvest, some exciting new vegetable to pull from the ground. They are endlessly entertained during CSA harvests, by helping harvesters collect the goods or playing with visiting children or by themselves, filling toy dump trucks with dirt in the open-sided barn. They love CSA pickup days, when members bring their children to experience the farm. Noah takes kids into the garden to snack on cherry tomatoes together and pick flowers. Jonah offers peppers, with a confidence that makes even skeptical children feel more adventurous with garden snacking.

One quiet evening we ventured out to the garden with the mission of “What’s for dinner?” They ran here and there collecting garden prizes–a mix of sorrel, chard and sweet potato greens, bok choi, green beans, and red peppers, and herbs. Phil and I love the sweet potato greens sauteed, the kids prefer raw sorrel. Bok choi is a raw edible spoon for rice (or dip) with the green part as a wrap. Green beans go fast raw or absolutely gobbled down sauteed with garlic and soy sauce. That was a daily sautee for my kids during the season, and they loved when these were not rationed, but “all you want to eat”. I would say “I’m making them until you say stop.” I wish it were that easy to feed my kids vegetables during the off-season. This is a truth with my kids, and likely with many of the kids who are CSA members–When it comes straight from the garden, especially if they help harvest it, and even more especially if they helped grow it, it is a completely different eating experience for them.

 Dinner Harvest

The boys, trekking home with their garden prizes, to make dinner

Dinner Harvest cart

 

So busy with this, I haven’t posted in months, but the farm is wrapping up for the season, and I am digging up collected photos to share with you. All summer, I wrote blog posts “in my head” with visual snapshots and all (do other bloggers do this??), but sometimes I actually did document them with a real camera. And its not too late, so the written blog entries may happen as well, coming to you during the cold months as a taste of the summer gone by.

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One Response to What’s for dinner?

  1. Shannon says:

    Yes other bloggers do this! Life is full of unfinished posts. Love this one!

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