Garden Produce

Yes, yet another post that I’ve been slow to write – there is snow on the ground and I’m writing about the garden… Well, actually, I’m writing about stuff leftover from the garden. I just used our last tomato so we have no more ‘food’ from our garden but our garden provides some wonderful loose parts that we will continue to use.

This year our sunflowers grew very well – I wrote about them already. We didn’t just get seeds and flowers though, we also got to use the big sunflower stalks in our construction area;

Sunflower stalks are very light for their size so the toddlers feel super strong carrying them about. They make good bridges and paths;

Other popular loose parts we get from the garden are the beans. We usually grow several different varieties of beans. Some of course are grown to eat but the scarlet runner beans we grow for fun. This year there were some pretty impressive beans;

Taking the seeds from the pods is a very popular activity – partly because many of the toddlers love disassembling stuff (disconnecting schema) but it is also great for developing fine motor skills.

We were surprised to discover that the biggest pods did NOT contain the biggest seeds. The variety of seed colours and sizes is also very interesting.

These ones we brought inside to add to our seed collection to plant in the spring. We have many more out in the yard – they get used as ‘ingredients’ for potions, sorting by size and shape, transporting in pails and trucks, land art, and so much more. Sometimes we even discover bean plants growing in random spots outside of the garden. Wonder how that happened? 🙂

Beans 3

We always grow two types of beans in our garden – green string beans that I like to cook for lunch (but few children will eat them) and the scarlet runner beans which usually we just play with.  You can read more about our previous bean activities in these post; Beans and Beans 2 

This year I moved the bean trellis to the far side of the garden and the plants have grown very well.

The rogue beans that sprouted up in the planters by the garage last year are here again this year even though we don’t (purposely) plant any seeds here.  These plants have huge leaves this year – even larger that the ones in the garden.  Here I’m holding one of the largest garden bean leaves up to compare it to the rogue bean leaves;

Even though we planted the same number of both types of bean seeds there are very few of the white flowers and almost no string beans at all;

There are hundreds of red flowers but not nearly as many scarlet runner beans as we have had in past years.  The beans that are there are HUGE – many are over a foot long!

Sadly, as large as these pods are, the beans inside are disappointing;

The children still insist on picking these beans every day but there has been an interesting difference this year.  These children have not been playing with the little beans like other groups in the past.  There has been no bean collecting and sorting.  It could be because the beans have not fully formed.  They are not bright pink and purple.

Every time these children pick one of these huge bean pods they rip it open and discard the beans! Then, to my amazement the eat the bean pods.  In previous years none of the children have ever eaten the scarlet runner bean pods.  I’ve never tried to eat these bean pods!

Yet these children – who still refuse to eat the string beans I cook for lunch – will all happily gnaw on the tough runner bean pods.

Beans 2

In my last post I highlighted some of the things that the children had been doing with the beans from our garden over the past few weeks. Yesterday there was no school so all the children were here for the full day.

Cooler temperatures over the weekend caused the leaves in the garden to shrivel and the bean pods are much easier to find.

The children were so excited and gathered as many beans as their hands, and pockets, could hold.  The colour varieties made the customary ‘stew’ very appealing;

Then the first store opened.  The children began selling, trading, and even renting beans to each other;

More stores opened and the children began marketing their beans.  They were setting up displays, offering discounts and special incentives to promote the beans for sale in their stores.

“Cases’ was the name of one of the stores.  Here all the beans were organized and customers chose the beans they liked best to fill their ‘case’.

We spent all morning outside and all we did was play with beans