In both urban and rural areas most of our vegetables come frozen, canned, bagged or coldly displayed under fluorescent lights. Our children for the most part have lost contact with the means of production. Unless they have parents or grandparents that are enthusiastic gardeners, even rural children associate food production with large machinery, and chemical applications. Urban children may not even know that carrots come from seeds, and that the white flowers on pea plants develop into pods that contain peas. I think every child should have the taste experience of new potatoes, baby carrots and beets, and freshly picked corn.
Nothing beats freshly picked peas or beans just minutes from the garden.
Many children now are deprived of the experience of shelling crisp pea pods eating the sweet uncooked small peas or even chewing on the sweet pod afterward. By the time peas in the pod reaches a store or by the time you get them home from a farmers market, the crispness is gone. My interest in gardening was cultivated by my grandfather from the age of 3 or so. He not only taught me to plant and care for the vegetables, but he taught me to observe all the other plants and animals that inhabit the garden. A garden is just not a place to grow vegetables but an environment where other plants and creatures compete for survival as well.