Kids in the Garden.

My 3 boys are decent afficiandos of the garden. I've included all three of them in various garden chores and activities over the years. They've helped plant seeds and care for them, they've helped pull weeds (not very willingly, lol), they like to water and they like to harvest. I like to think that they gain a lot of knowledge of where our food comes from just by virtue of us having a large garden out back.

Brendan has developed a taste for spicy food and especially hot peppers as he's gotten older. Our 4 serrano plants are just full of peppers just a bit shy of full size, and Brendan really wanted to go pick one and dice it up and eat it. I told him which plants to go pick from (we have 16 pepper plants, 4 varieties) and sent him outside with instructions to pick "the largest one he can find."

Check out what he brought back:

Buzzz!!!! Thanks for playing, Brendan. That is my "largest" bell pepper. Sigh. I sent him back out and showed him the serrano plants. He found a couple of suitable ones, diced them with garlic, fried 'em up in butter and ate one batch and then blended the other into some refried beans (yum!). The tasty refried beans almost made up for him plucking the wrong pepper.