Kids and gardens

Oh, what fun opportunities for play the garden offers.  Our daughter has had hours of enjoyment planting and tending her own little plot this year, growing just what she pleased (and what will a 4 year old choose to grow?  Rainbow carrots, dinosaur kale, dragon beans, sunflowers, and many kinds of cherry tomatoes), watering with all manner of containers to hold water...she roams the big garden enjoying the range of flavours available as she strolls by making her own leafy lettuce "sushi" rolls filled with spicy chives, tastes tangy warm tomatoes, picks crunchy beans, juicy cucumbers, sweet fennel seeds.  She chases our hens out of the kale patch and then feeds them comfrey leaves from the herb bed.  Finds a quiet resting place in a special spot under the huge sage plant, or uses the cold frame structure as a climbing bar for gymnastics.  And of course there is the dirt!  Digging, weeding, lifting rocks and logs to find what insect wait underneath.  We know a day is well spent for all of us if there is dirt between the toes and under the fingernails.