Home & Garden

Mom, where do carrots come from?

Debbie and Kara in front of their backyard garden.

About a year ago, Debbie Kong realized she was losing the battle of nutrition with her daughter, Kara, then 9. Debbie would send Kara to school with a healthy snack, like an apple, only to have her daughter trade it for a bag of potato chips or a sugar-filled granola bar.

Debbie needed help regaining control over her daughter’s food choices. Though she served healthy meals full of fruits and vegetables, Kara had little interest in eating anything nutritious. Debbie knew something had to give.

“I decided to give her ownership of the food,” said Debbie. “I wanted her to learn more about her food and where it comes from.”

So together, she and Kara dug, tilled and planted a garden in the backyard of their Forest Park home.

Debbie encouraged Kara to choose whatever fruits and vegetables she wanted to plant in the garden bed. Kara planted a “pizza garden” filled with tomatoes, basil, oregano and parsley. She also planted watermelon, sugar snap peas and carrots. Debbie worked on a couple of different gardens of her own, filling them with kale, spinach, lettuce, broccoli rabe, garlic, tomatoes of all kinds, cucumbers and more.

As summer rolled in and the garden began sprouting, Kara had taken a whole new interest in the fruits (and vegetables) of her labor.

“It was really like pulling teeth in the beginning, getting her to eat vegetables,” Debbie said. “But now, she’ll try it.”

Kara excitedly lists off the recipe to one of her favorite new snacks — a kale shake.

“To sweeten it up we add Ovaltine, then some milk, kale and fruit, frozen or fresh,” she said.

When asked if it’s her own creation, Kara admits it’s not her original recipe.

“I was just experimenting,” she said.

In the year since they’ve planted the garden, it’s had a huge impact on Kara (whose nickname is now “Little Green Girl”) and Debbie. Kara’s new hobby is writing and illustrating small books about gardening, and she and her mom have started a Facebook page called The Singing Seed, where kids and parents can share recipes and swap garden talk.

Debbie is finishing her training as a Master Gardener at the University of Illinois Extension program, the flagship outreach effort of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that offers educational programs to residents throughout Illinois. She also became certified to teach classes about community gardens through FarmtoSchool.org, and she and Kara will be teaching weekly “Garden Gnome” classes for kids ages 7 to 11 at Peterson Garden (2501 Peterson Ave.) May 28 through August 6.

In their free time, the two are busy planning what they’ll plant in this year’s backyard garden. Right now, lettuce, spinach and kale are growing well in one of the beds. Kara is looking forward to planting snap peas and watermelon, while Debbie is excited about eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, leeks, beets and anything else that will grow in her backyard.

“It’s neat to be able to do this,” Debbie said. “It’s neat to be able to teach other people.”

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