Urban kids' veggie-picking fun at NTU Farm!

The "NTU Farm" regularly hosts a lot of activities. If you're a parent or child who enjoys farm-related activities, you can pop by their official website now and then. I think the educational value isn’t super high—the events are planned and run by NTU students, so they aren’t exactly professionally run. But it’s still great for letting kids interact with “the land” and “farm work,” especially since city-born kids from Taipei rarely get such opportunities. So far, we've participated in rice-planting and vegetable-picking activities, both of which were pretty good!

At the start of the veggie-picking activity, there's usually a short video explaining the life cycle of vegetables—just like the one shown during the rice-planting session. But on the day we went, due to other events being held simultaneously, they skipped the video, which meant our originally one-hour activity ended up being just a short half hour. Plus, we could only pick one head of cabbage, so the actual picking time was just five minutes. Even so, I still found it quite fun. The activity cost 200 NT, and you get to take home the cabbage. It also lets the little ones get some sun, run around, and touch the soil—it’s not bad, especially since vegetable prices have been so high lately. And honestly, freshly picked veggies really are crisp and sweet!

The cabbage patch at NTU isn’t very big, so the supply of cabbages is limited, hence the 200 NT price per head. But hey, they’re organic and pesticide-free!

On the day, three to four NTU students led the cabbage-picking activity.

They started by explaining the different varieties of cabbages and letting everyone feel their firmness to identify which ones were ready for picking.

The little one first set her eyes on this one, feeling its water content—basically, as long as it feels thick and solid, it’s good to eat!

It felt like a fresh, good-quality cabbage.

But if it looks small and underdeveloped like this one, then it’s not ready to be picked yet.

Some of the kids were a bit wary of getting dirty, but while just touching it, they hadn’t gotten any dirt on their hands yet, so they found it novel and fun. But once the cabbage was pulled out, that’s when the meltdown happened!

Next, parents could go collect a sickle and then choose their preferred cabbage to slowly cut down.

The little one really wanted to hold the sickle herself, but since it’s a bit sharp, we weren’t too comfortable with that.

Alright, then—one slow slice down, and actually, it wasn’t as easy as we thought. The cabbage stems are pretty tough.

First, let’s have mom take a photo with the cabbage. It’s quite big, though the surrounding leaves still need trimming.

The little one also took a photo with the cabbage, but she insisted on not touching it because the bottom had some dirt on it—and she’s really scared of getting dirty. Her parents clearly aren’t bothered by dirt, so why does she have this issue?

Finally, an NTU student helped us take a family photo before the cabbage-picking activity wrapped up for the day!

 

Before the activity, NTU reminded us to bring our own shopping bags for the cabbages, so we came prepared. We put the cabbage in the bag, and cooked with it that very night—we even got two meals out of it and were totally satisfied!

 

Then we let the little one run around a bit—NTU is great for killing time, so we let her crawl around near the car.

We also had their signature pancake.

It was really delicious, but was her facial expression after eating it normal? The only downside is that since we drove there, weekend parking fees are 60 NT per hour, so parking costs were pretty steep. But there was no helping it—we’re not exactly close to NTU, and even taking the MRT requires multiple transfers, so driving was more convenient!

The NTU Farm really hosts tons of activities—you can always check their official website, and they also post updates on their Facebook fan page!

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