A nutritious, get-your-hands-dirty family activity

One of my favorite activities in the summer is to take the boys to the fresh farmers market in our village. I love seeing them taste new fruits and get excited about fresh produce. When we moved into a new house about a year ago, I was enthralled with our great backyard and the big old maple trees. I was incredibly excited to build a new vegetable garden, watch my 4-year-old get his hands dirty, and show him how the vegetables come from the ground to our kitchen and to our table. What better way to teach a child the famous “you are what you eat” than through gardening. Letting kids get their hands dirty in the garden has been shown to increase their overall consumption of fruits and vegetables by adding to the excitement of preparing and eating something you grew, and fostering an appreciation for how food is grown.

I’m always a proud mom when my 4-year-old asks for an apple while grocery shopping instead of begging for the cookie. However, gardening helps instill the lesson that the apple grew from a tree and doesn’t magically appear at the grocery store because of Spiderman. Yes, I’ve been known to convince him to taste a fruit or vegetable because it gives his favorite super hero his strength and color. Hey, if it works, it works!

The only downfall of these maple trees is the welcome but expansive shade they provide which leaves little to no room for a vegetable garden. If I couldn’t get the boys’ hands dirty in our own yard, I wanted to find an alternative. Through my research, I was introduced to an amazing local organization called Smart Farms, www.smartfarms.org, located in Barrington. The Smart Farm’s mission is to build a healthy sustainable community through gardening. According to Kathy Gabelman, founder of Smart Farms, “We have tasks for all ages and love to see the excitement in kids’ eyes when they pick a beet or carrot … or taste an edible flower.” Here’s what a couple of older children volunteering at the farm had to say about their experience:

타 Tommy, age 9: “Smart Farm is really fun. I got to harvest tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower and beans and plant something called elephant garlic. It is really big and I dug a deep hole and just put the garlic in there and covered it up with the dirt. I want my mom to plant garlic in her garden too. I told her I can do it for her since I know how.”

타 Jack, age 13: “I had a blast working at the farm. It is cool to learn how to plant and harvest different vegetables and also how to start a compost pile. I picked beets and learned how they stain everything you touch! It is not only fun, it is a great cause.”

타 Michael, age 12: “I went to Smart Farm to get service hours and ended up having so much fun. I picked beans and learned how to harvest carrots. You have to feel the top of the carrot with your finger to see if it is big enough to harvest then you pull on the green leaves to get it out of the ground. It is cool. It made me excited for my mom’s garden.”

I love that I now have a place to take my kids for hands-on experience. Gabelman invites and welcomes all families and volunteers during their work hours: 2 to 4 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday and 9 to 11 a.m. Sunday.

In addition to letting the kids get their hands dirty, they also have an opportunity to learn to give back to the community. All produce collected during the season is given back to help neighbors in need.

Gardening-cooking funA fun way to bridge the learning experience in Smart Farm#146;s garden or your own garden to the kitchen is by creating a garden cookbook with your kids, like the one described below:Make a cookbook of all of your favorite recipes and search the Internet for new ones. Try to cook and taste unique fruits and vegetables like: kiwi fruit, maroon carrots, mango, yellow watermelon, blackberries, papaya, rutabaga, kohlrabi and sprouts.Try fruits and vegetables prepared in different ways. For example, carrots come in a variety of packages. You can buy them whole, prepackaged into strips, prepackaged into baby strips, prepackaged into horizontal chips, canned and frozen. Have a taste test to compare the different types and include fresh samples from your garden or a farmers market. Notice flavor and texture differences. Parent note: It#146;s OK for your child to not like every fruit or vegetable, but it#146;s important for them to take a taste. Even if he has scoffed at a specific fruit or vegetable in the past, this is a great way to reintroduce it. He may not like a carrot raw or steamed but may discover along the way that he loves carrots roasted! Happy gardening!Contact me: If you have any feedback, comments or questions on this topic or any others, I would love to hear from you! You can send me an email at christina@nourishedliving.com with your thoughts.타Christina Fitzgerald, a registered dietitian and licensed dietitian nutritionist, is the owner of Nourished, Nutrition and Wellness, www.nourishedliving.com. She lives with her husband and two young sons in the Northwest suburbs.