A Huge Gardening Success!

Do you remember what I said I was hoping would happen in the wake of our garden harvesting this year? Well, it has happened!

The girl ate a tomato!

And not just one, but MANY!
Here's the funny thing about Sophie (and I'm sure many other children in the world): it all depends on how it's presented. Eating straight out of the garden is a very curious novelty to her. So she'll eat things outside that she still won't eat if I put them on her plate for a meal.
She does the same thing with green beans, but I was beginning to think tomatoes were a lost cause this year. However, Will eats them like candy... and peer pressure WORKS! She'd seen him asking for them enough times and finally said she wanted one too. (Actually, she'd tried one on several occasions before this and spit it out, but not this time!) The kids are usually playing in the driveway or the yard while I'm out tending to the garden in the evenings right after work. So the first day that she ate a whole tomato, she came back for a second one. And then the next time we were out picking from the garden, she just kept coming back... till she'd eaten FIVE plum tomatoes and a couple small, yellow, cherry-type tomatoes. She'd say to me "I want a tomato, mommy." And then, when I'd rinse one off and give it to her, she'd say "Thank you, mommy."

When she was refusing, I didn't make an issue of it. And when she finally ate one, I didn't make a big deal of it. I prefer not to give any sort of drama to these things so that they remain casual to HER. I'm learning the best ways and times to successfully offer vegetables to Sophie when she will be most likely to eat them. I add vegetables to lots of recipes, even in unusual ways, as a means of enhancing the nutritional value... NOT to "sneak them in". But she absolutely still gets them in obvious form on her plate with meals and snacks. I look at our garden harvesting as a "snack time" when she's probably getting hungry for dinner. She eats a whole serving of vegetables before we even sit down at the table and then I don't stress at all when she refuses the ones on her plate.
{P.S. - there's the little rag-a-muffin I know and love again! Never fails. Every day. ;-) }

A few more pictures from previous weeks (as early as mid-August) of the things I've pulled from my garden. It's amazing the progression of quantity. I was so excited about this amount pictured... but the tomatoes have quintupled at least!

This was right after Will and I came home from his preschool orientation. We'd hurried along with dinner and getting out the door for that, that we didn't have time to pull and water before we left.

He is forever asking to take pictures with my camera. :)

Another day's harvest just before we left for Traverse City.

I am a salsa making machine! I even made some for us to take with us in a cooler for the weekend up north. It was our lunch one day.

"Hmm... where should I keep these?"

"This seems to be a perfect place for them!"

"Yep! Still there!"

Green beans on the go.

Tomatoes are piling up! It's almost time to make sauce! I've just got to set aside the time and get motivated enough to do it! In the mean time, were eating them raw A LOT and making lots of salsa.

Another example of the "it-depends-on-how-they're-presented" theory. I know I've mentioned here before about the mom who always had a plate of raw veggies prepped in the fridge to put out while she's prepping lunch or dinner. Then when the kids start asking "Is it ready yet?" or "When are we going to eat? I'm hungry!"... she directs them to the plate on the table with cut up raw veggies. That is their only option until dinner is on the table. When they're hungry and this is available "right now", they're likely to eat it without (or with less) complaint. For Sophie anyway, it is also the novelty of a snack at her fingertips when she's not sitting at the table for a meal. It must be a freedom thing that entices her, because it almost never fails. Oh, and that mom just makes up a new raw veggie plate for the next meal while she's cleaning up the present meal. Smart! The kids were coloring and writing in a dry-erase book when I set down this plate. It was gone in less than 10 minutes.

Will never needs any encouraging to eat raw veggies, but Sophie held her own in finishing this plate. There was a lot there! I kinda' thought Craig and I would get some when we actually did sit down later.

Back to that first tomato day for Sophie...

It sure helps that she has her big brother to set the example. :)

When she first started eating them, she seemed unsure. But she didn't spit it out and then she asked for another. No trimming or cutting up. Just biting into like an apple and eating the whole thing.

Love this kid. He makes my life easier in so many ways.

Our little, green, pear-shaped, cherry tomatoes have finally started to turn! From this:

To this:

And just yesterday I pulled all of these off, with many more to come!

Get a load of my tomato basket now!

And this was all in one day! (Sunday) I had been leaving my jalapenos alone until I needed one despite their huge production really early on and still. But many of them were turning red and I figured I might as well pull them and try to give some away. That whole box of tomatoes came off and my mom took some. Casey, they're still available if you want any!