Home Grown Potatoes
One potato, two, potato, three potato, four,
Five potato, six potato, seven potato more…
The Portland House Preschool children have been busy developing their edible gardens and have grown a variety of vegetables and plants at the start of the spring term. They have learned about the different vegetables, and how to plant and care for them, cultivating them from seeds and small plants.
The children had planted some potatoes in the vegetable planters, carefully preparing the soil and raking it. Over the weeks we have watched the new shoots appear. The children learnt how to care for the young plants, watering them each day. We talked about the potatoes needing sunshine and water to help them grow and how they keep us healthy.
Once the potato plants were fully grown some of the children helped to dig up the plants and harvest the new potatoes from the stems. The produce was collected in a basket and then the children washed and scrubbed them to prepare for cooking.
Two of the children carefully carried the basket to Debbie in the kitchen who kindly cooked them for us by boiling them in a pan of hot water until they had softened.
The children were extremely eager to taste their home grown produce, we talked about some of the different things you can make with a potato and decided upon making a potato salad for our afternoon snack. Several children busily helped to cut up the onions into small slices and quickly realised that our eyes sometimes have a reaction to the potent onion juice which makes them cry. They found it interesting looking at each other’s eyes running with watery tears.
When the potatoes and onions were cut up into small pieces the group took turns to mix mayonnaise into the prepared ingredients. The children couldn’t wait to try it and thoroughly enjoyed eating their yummy homemade potato salad for snack.
