Living with "Veggie Skeptics"? Teach them to garden!

I grew up around vegetable gardens.  My dad always had tomatoes and squash growing in our backyard, and both my granddads had huge gardens that fascinated me.  Both grandmothers kept compost buckets in the kitchen, and knew how to cook up some seriously good "local" food!  Heck, they were locavores before that term was even invented.  I was a fairly picky eater as a kid, but eventually an interest in all things food and gardening has brought me around to understanding what a gift a good garden can be.

Fast forward a few years, and I find myself cooking for three picky children and a veggie resistant husband.  I call them "veggie skeptics".  They'll eat corn, roasted potatoes, and the occasional field pea, but they avoid all other greens and veggies like the plague.  They prefer food that comes from a box or bag...and it's my goal to change that!

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about our little plot at the Snellville Community Garden, which we've enjoyed immensely.  I stopped by last night to do a bit of weeding and walking around, and was so happy to see beans and cucumbers waiting to be picked!  The recent rains (and a bit of fertilizer) has been good to the garden...Mother Nature always does a better job of watering than we can ever do.  I brought home a small basket of beautiful light yellow Golden Gate beans, some bright green Helda pole beans, and 2 cute little Dragon Egg cucumbers. I walked in the house and made a huge deal about our little harvest.

Just as I hoped, the kids were also very excited!  They have been helping all along with the planting, watering, and waiting, and to see that basket of goodies that they helped grow was what it took to get them interested.  Everyone tried a bite of cucumber without begging.  Tonight we having fresh sauteed beans with just a bit of butter and garlic.  It may take several times (or several years!) to convince my little skeptics, but I truly believe that the proverbial seed has been planted.  They will grow up knowing what truly fresh food tastes like.  They will have a teeny glimpse of self sufficiency.  And...they might just learn to love their veggies!   It happened to me that way....