For my birthday this year my parents finally helped us get our acts together and plant up our garden. As well as some gorgeous flowering plants they bought a whole host of herbs, but the thing Arthur was most excited about was the lettuce.

Salad is pretty much my favourite thing to eat during the summer, but try as I might I haven’t been able to get Arthur interested in eating leaves. That all changed once he saw me picking the lettuce from the garden – and suddenly he wanted to try too.

He’d been fascinated by the new green things we were growing long before they were ready to pick. Several times a day he’d pipe up with ‘water plants?’ – handy for me as I don’t have a very good track record with keeping them alive…

We found him his own Arthur-sized watering can and he took his new job very seriously: first following Daddy’s lead and then having a go all by himself.

It’s lovely to see him enjoying our own little patch of nature so much, but the best thing about growing salad of course is that we get to eat it. Arthur’s still not entirely sure how to go about that, but he’s certainly enthusiastic. He asks for “lettuce” or “salad” with just about every meal – and I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s loving it as much as I do!