When my little gardeners joined me in the garden yesterday, we all enjoyed getting our hands dirty together.

Girl 1 brought in the first batch of carrots from her plot. They were a little small, but she was just too excited to wait and immediately ate them all for lunch.

Unfortunately, the cabbage loopers joined us in the garden, too. They were all over my precious kale.

I had Girl 2 put some water in the bottom of a bucket and set Little Boy, my little caterpillar hunter, to work picking them off the leaves and throwing them into the bucket. A few minutes in, he looked into the bucket and, shocked, proclaimed, "Momma! The caterpillars can't swim!"

As I explained that we were trying to kill these caterpillars because they were eating our garden up, a look of horror spread across his face. "But, Momma, I LIKE caterpillars! I do not want to make them dead!"

And, just like that, I lost my good help. I did pick up some Neem oil today to spray on the kale, so hopefully that will clear up the problem. I've never used Neem oil, but my organic gardening guide recommends it for heavy infestations.

Besides the carrots, we also brought in sugar snap peas and beets. Mmmmmm.