It’s never too soon to get children in the garden so when we needed to get some vegetables for lunch, Olivia comes along to lend a hand. Standing on the edge of the raised beds, she reaches down to grab a carrot. With a tiny tug, she pulls out a couple of smaller samples staring at them incredulously. Her tiny feet and toes get a little muddy with Juana admonishing me that we will have to clean her off.
After pulling some carrots, radishes, lettuce and sorrel, we go back to the kitchen to clean and sample our harvest. Charlotte offers her sister a bit of sorrel (lemon leaf) but Olivia is indifferent. She is more interested in the thin purple carrot she pulled.
We let Olivia stick the lacy carrot into her mouth and she clamps down on it with her toothless gums and sucks it for dear life. She enjoys it and doesn’t want to let go. Any attempt to pull it away is met with a disapproving scream. Juana slices and cooks up a few carrot slivers that I then hold onto while Olivia gums them down. After a while she has made mush of everything. I think I have found another garden helper.
