MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — While many of us enjoy eating a fresh salad on a hot summer day, we know that lots of kids hate eating vegetables.
But this summer, some kids are getting a lesson on how to like green, leafy things.
For those of you that find yourself trying to convince your kids to add that vegetable to their plates, perhaps without too much success, here’s another option.
Teach your child how to grow vegetables.
Better yet, get a master gardener to teach them. And then after they harvest the veggies, they are much more likely to eat them.
Just say the word and with some kids, you instantly get a heartfelt response. But on the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota, you will find Goldy’s Garden.
Each Tuesday through the summer, kids who are enrolled in University of Minnesota day camps spend some time with master gardeners, dirt and green things.
Master gardener Betsy Massie helped develop the program three years ago, realizing many kids don’t have access to gardens.
“Sometimes they don’t realize what their food is when it is served on a plate, which is why it is really important for kids to see food growing from the ground up, coming up,” Massie said.
She believes that if children learn that good plants produce good food, that will lead to good health.
“As the garden starts to grow, the kids are more connected to those plants. We grow lots of squash. Kids will eat squash if they’ve grown it. Yeah, believe it or not. They think it is really yummy,” she said.
So would fourth grader Derek Williams eat more vegetables after learning more about how they grow?
“I’ll consider it,” he said.
Those gardening sessions are at the U of M-St. Paul campus and they run through the end of August.
Again, they are for kids who are enrolled in week-long youth camps called Gopher Adventures.
There are still openings, if you want to look into registering your child. Just click here to find out more.