As I mentioned before, I have been a little more focused on the quality of food that we have been eating. I have been trying to find some good alternatives for sugar for me (agave nectar, honey, maple syrup, etc.) and we have been adding a lot more whole grains, and fruits and vegetables to our diet and finding a lot of great new grains and foods to try. It has really been fun. This focus on food and how the food you eat affects your body really makes me think more about where the food comes from and how it is grown. I have started buying more organic things, and have made more trips to our farmers market. It has been neat for the whole family to be involved.
So, I was thinking about how I could get William excited about this too, and help him to start learning about food and where it comes from. My mom recently gave us a strawberry plant that William helped me plant, and is helping me water, but it reminded me of this great farm I had heard about around here, but never got around to visiting. It is called Tanaka Farms, and it is literally about 5 minutes away from our house. It is a 30 acre farm that is organic, and does tours all week during season. So we headed out this morning to see what it was like.
The tour starts with us all getting on a wagon pulled by a big tractor that takes us all over the farm. The tour guide tells us information about the farm, who owns it, how it is run, and what they do to keep the bugs away that doesn't involve chemicals. Apparently they spray the plants with garlic and chili peppers to keep the bugs away, and plant onions between the strawberries. Every few minutes they would stop the tractor and get out and pull some fresh vegetable from the ground and pass it around for everyone to try. It was delicious! We had green leaf lettuce, fresh carrots, sugar snap peas, radishes, cilantro and spinach leaves. They gave us a huge bunch of everything so we had tons to take home. William thought the peas were pretty cool because we opened them up and he would take the little peas out and eat them, but that was all he was willing to try. At last we got to the strawberry fields where we got our plastic containers and were let loose to fill them up with the most delicious strawberries we could find, and eat as many as we wanted along the way. It was awesome! Especially if you love strawberries as much as we do. It is a coveted thing in our house, so you can imagine what it was like to be let loose in a field of fresh ripe strawberries. We all had a great time, and our strawberry covered faces let it show all the way back on the wagon ride. Mark said it reminded him of picking blackberries in Oregon as a kid. We can't wait for watermelon season, and the watermelon tour!
The delicious lettuce that they pulled out of the ground for us to try
William trying the "green drops" a.k.a "peas"
Mmmm...sooo good
Strawberry Lips
What we brought home
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