How does your garden grow?

As a child I had a name plaque on my bedroom door, and as part of my name is Mary, it also had the nursery rhyme “Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow”.

My parents are very talented gardeners, and the fruits of their work can be seen not only in their own beautiful gardens, but in the many plants and well fed lawns at our house too. Our neighbours joke about our gardening service, who come to “rescue” our garden from us at regular intervals.

Their green fingers, however, appear to have skipped a generation.

There is nothing my son loves more than to help his Papa in the garden, as he enthusiastically clears away leaves and follows my dad around.

He was therefore delighted when, as a blogger, I received this very cute gardening set, as part of a campaign by McCains to educate kids on where food comes from.

I took the tools and watering can out yesterday to photograph them for this post and forgot to put it away before he discovered it, otherwise it may have turned into an additional present at Christmas…..but I was too late!

Did you know that 1 in 10 children aged 7-11 think chickens lay potatoes? And they have no idea that chips are made from the humble spud!
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In a totally unscientific test I decided to “interview” my 5 year old son about his knowledge of the origins of food and here is how we got on:

Me: Where do eggs come from?

My son – chickens

Potatoes? – garden

So far so good

Apples? – trees

Carrots? – fields

Bacon? – Chicken (ooops!)

Peas? – fields

Cars? (a car had just driven past) – Jesus makes them in factories

Chicken Nuggets (not that our kids eat them of course!)(maybe I should have asked about chicken goujons instead!) – chickens

Sausages? don’t know …. you tell me – he giggled when I said pigs, not sure he believed me.

Milk and butter?  – cows

My son then decided to educate me on how our ice/water dispensing fridge/freezer works, and his imagination took over!

So there you have it – he may know where his food comes from, but on dodgier ground when it comes to ice and water!

McCain Foods (GB) Ltd are running a non-branded campaign to educate kids in a fun way about food provenance and the humble potato. For more information you can visit The Potato Story online – there are some educational games and resources for parents and kids to explore. During this school term there has been a bus (painted to look like lots of potatoes – honest!) traveling around the UK, visiting schools in a effort to teach children about food provenance.

So, if you have kids, do they know where their food comes from? Tonight as you eat your dinner, have a chat about where the food comes from. You might just be surprised in the answers you hear!