The Lessons Found In My Garden

There have been a few teachable moments to arise as a result of our gardening experiment.  First:
PREDATORS:

Who see's a butterfly and thinks "predator"? Farmers and gardeners do!
The caterpillars decimated by green leafy vegetables. They are called cabbage whites and they will eat the life out of a garden!

So what does my husband do? He puts one in a box with holes and we turn it into a science lesson of observation and a handwriting and spelling lesson as my daughter keeps a journal.

On the positive side she was able to witness 3 of the 4 life stages (caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly) of this thing. Also she learned and had to spell the three stages plus other words.  With her in Kindergarten, this is the first journal we attempted and I'm pleased with the outcome and her increased handwriting confidence.

After two weeks, we released it.

She is launching the evil insect from what WAS my raised bed garden. Now its a dirt holder due to the damage.  I will now SMASH everyone I find.

On to happier times:

The basil is growing strong. (We've had to kill 3 of another type  of caterpillar on here but we learned to inspect all plants daily).

So far I've made a DELICIOUS basil pesto with penne and served it with parmesan crusted salmon and broccoli.

Today we made a basil, onion and garlic marinara.

BabyGirl is learning to harvest the leaves.