Harvest begins at April's Angels' little farm!

It all began with a little bean and a naptime story...... Jack and the bean stalk which grabbed the attention of all and sundry with it's magic beans and the wonders they brought forth.

The following day I served green beans "Magic Beans" for lunch and the children were keen to try them and find out what magic would follow.....well, as you know, Magic Beans make your brain grow! and major brain growth causes two, three and four year olds to become so smart that they are able to do amazing things...like ride real horses!

From there we discovered that broccoli, carrots, corn, spinach, peas, cauliflower and zucchini have similar magic qualities to Magic Beans....so of course we needed to visit the green grocers often to secure more and more brain growing foods to have for lunch.

In the meantime, we were nurturing and closely watching the bean seeds we planted on cotton wool on story day. They grew and grew until we needed to plant them in the garden. We now had the power of agriculture under our belts so off we go to the nursery for seeds and seedlings.

During the rush to eat vegies, increase brain growth and get smarter, I decided I needed to keep the momentum of this and the trust in these magic qualities high, so I booked pony rides, informed the parents and had the children delivered in horse riding appropriate gear. I told them we were going for a drive to see something. On the drive I asked if they could count how many horses they saw.....there was alot, and with each new one to add to the count I was asked the same question ..."April, can we ride that horse one day?" to which I would answer...."One day"

When we arrived at the stables, I asked the attendant if she thought the children looked smart enough to ride her horses as they had eaten alot of magic vegies. She agreed they looked very smart and asked them to choose a helmet and a horse.......the smiles went from ear to ear and head to foot!! The rides were of course led and around a stable yard.....but the happiness they brought was awesome.

They are now talking about the next time and the possibility of riding Alice the Camel once their muscles are strong enough........Meat, fish, cheese and milk builds strong muscles.

During the July school holidays we all rolled up our sleeves and transformed the side garden into a children's hobby farm with plants, flowers, herbs, fruit amd veg.

This week we harvested tomatoes, beans, bok choy, snowpeas, broccoli, capsicum, zucchinis, basil, mint and lemon balm......as well as irises, freesias and jonquils to pretty our table. Yesterday, the children assisted me with the washing and cutting of the vegies to go into a hokkien noodle stirfry along with turkey mince and teriyaki sauce. They ate every bite! Not a vegie was wasted.

For dessert they enjoyed mandarins from the tree we planted last Spring in their orchard. The joy in those little faces as they picked the fruit they had watched grow and develop from flower buds was just amazing. At home time yesterday I had to promise mr and miss 4 that I would save them some weeds to pluck on Monday just so mum could get them to go home...lol.

I hear people say that kids won't eat vegetables or fruit and I smile, because my fruit basket is emptied of several kilos of apples, bananas, citrus, kiwi, pineapple, melon, pears etc etc etc every week, and the children are just itching to pick the vegies from their farm and eat them every day.

I love harvest time!