Download and print colouring pages from Peter and Gracie’s Great Garden Harvest Adventure: https://bit.ly/S3EP03ColouringPages
After a summer of planting, watering and weeding, the carrots, green beans, pumpkins, tomatoes and cabbages are finally ready to pick. Along the way, Peter learns the right way to pull a carrot (with a little unplanned help from Gracie), discovers that carrots can be purple, and finds out that pumpkins like to be asked nicely. Gracie is, as always, the most enthusiastic helper in the garden, sniffing out tomatoes, catching green beans before they reach the basket and supervising every step.
When Peter and his mum take a basket of fresh vegetables next door to Mrs. Alder, Peter discovers that giving away part of the harvest feels as good as picking the biggest pumpkin. The day ends with a harvest dinner made entirely from the backyard garden and a toast to the best garden helpers on Vancouver Island.
Skookum Kids Stories is a Vancouver Island children’s podcast featuring original adventures with Peter & Gracie, The Eskimo Dog and The Mellow Submarine with Captain Dave, Larry the Lobster and other unforgettable characters. Inspired by the people, places, wildlife and history of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, each story encourages imagination, curiosity and a love of reading. Downloadable colouring pages for many episodes! Skookum Kids Stories is part of The PULSE Podcast Community.
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Transcription:
Fireside Books: Fireside Books in Parksville and BookWyrm in Port Alberni offer used books at just $5 or less. Both locations make growing your personal library easier than ever. New and used books, and so much more. Order online at firesidebooks.ca and pick up at either location. Details available online. Ask about returning books for a book credit. Two locations, one amazing adventure in browsing.
The Ballad of Peter & Gracie: Peter and his dog Gracie ran through fields so wide, with dreams in their pockets and stars as their guide. Every day’s an adventure under the open sky, in their world of stories, time just flies by.
Peter McCully: Every morning, before the sun had even finished stretching over the mountains, Gracie, the American Eskimo Dog, was already awake. Her fluffy white fur was puffed up like a cloud. Her pointy ears stood straight at attention, and her curly tail thumped against the floor. Thump, thump, thump, like a happy little drum.
Gracie’s job, as she saw it, was very important. She had to wake up Peter. She let out a soft, snuffly woof. She nudged his hand with her cold black nose until one of his eyes popped open. “Okay, okay, Gracie, I’m up.” Peter laughed, rubbing his eyes. Peter was seven years old, with messy brown hair that never quite stayed flat and a gap where his front tooth used to be. He pulled on his rubber boots, the green ones with the frogs on them, because today was a special day.
Today was harvest day. All summer long, Peter and his mum had planted seeds in the backyard garden. Peter remembered pressing tiny carrot seeds into the dirt with his thumb, so small they looked like little brown specks of pepper. He remembered planting pumpkin seeds the size of his fingernail, and rows of green bean seeds that looked like smiling little faces.
He had watered them and pulled weeds and watched and waited. And Gracie had helped, too, mostly by lying in the sunniest patch of grass, supervising with one eye open, and occasionally digging a hole exactly where nobody wanted one. Now, weeks and weeks later, the garden was bursting. Orange carrot tops poked out of the soil like little green fireworks.
Fat purple cabbages sat like round, wrinkly cushions. Pumpkins, the colours of sunset, lay fat and happy in the corner. And the bean plants climbed so high up their wooden poles that they nearly touched the fence.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” said Peter’s mum, already outside with a big wicker basket tucked under her arm. “Are you and Gracie ready for the harvest?” “Ready,” said Peter. “Woof,” said Gracie, spinning in a happy circle that made her tail look like a fluffy white pinwheel.
They walked out to the garden together, the grass still cool and a little damp with morning dew. Gracie trotted ahead, her nose already working overtime, sniffing at every leaf and vine as if each one had a brand-new secret to tell her. “First up,” said Peter’s mum, kneeling by the carrot patch, “carrots. Do you remember how to pick them, Peter?”
Peter nodded seriously. “You have to hold the green part, the leafy top, and pull straight up. Not too fast or it might snap.” “Well, that’s exactly right.” So Peter wrapped his fingers around a bunch of leafy green carrot tops. He planted his boots firmly in the dirt, took a deep breath, and pulled. Nothing happened.
He pulled harder. The carrot didn’t budge an inch. “This one’s stubborn,” Peter grunted, his face turning a little pink. Gracie trotted over to see what all the fuss was about. She sniffed at the carrot top, sniffed at Peter’s boots, and then, before anyone could stop her, grabbed a leafy green top in her teeth right next to Peter’s hands.
“Gracie, wait, I don’t think…” Too late. Gracie planted all four paws and gave a mighty tug at the exact time that Peter pulled. Pop! The carrot shot out of the ground so fast that Peter tumbled backward into the soft dirt, and Gracie went rolling the other way with the carrot still clamped happily in her mouth.
For one long, quiet second, nobody moved. Then Peter burst out laughing, dirt smudged across his cheek. “Gracie, you’re not supposed to eat the vegetables before they’re washed.” Gracie dropped the carrot proudly at his feet, gave it a satisfied sniff, and wagged her tail so hard her whole back end wiggled along with it.
It was, without question, the biggest carrot Peter had ever seen, long and orange and only a little bit chewed on the top. “Good teamwork, you two,” laughed Peter’s mum, helping Peter up and brushing dirt from his jacket. “Although next time, Gracie, let’s let Peter do the pulling.” Gracie tilted her head as if she wasn’t quite sure that that was a rule she had agreed to.
They filled the basket with carrot after carrot, orange ones, and a few surprising purple ones that made Peter gasp. “Mum, this carrot is the wrong colour.”
“Well, that’s a purple carrot,” his mum said. “Believe it or not, carrots used to be purple, white, and yellow long before most of them turned orange. Nature likes to surprise us.” Peter held the purple carrot up to the sky, turning it this way and that way like a treasure. Gracie sniffed it and sneezed, which made Peter laugh so hard he nearly dropped the carrot.
Next came the green beans dangling from the tall vines like skinny fingers. Peter had to stand on his tiptoes to reach the highest ones, and Gracie helped by standing guard underneath, ready to catch anything that fell, which mostly meant she caught a bean or two directly in her mouth before Peter could stop her.
“Gracie, those are for dinner, not for you.” Gracie gave him a look that clearly said, “There’s plenty for everyone,” and kept right on catching. By the time the bean basket was full, Peter’s arms were tired, his knees were dusty, and there was a smear of garden dirt across his nose that Gracie had put there herself, nudging him affectionately while he worked.
“Time for the big one,” Peter’s mum said, pointing toward the corner of the garden where the pumpkins lay like round orange boulders among their curling green vines. Peter’s eyes went wide. “Can I pick the pumpkin all by myself?” “You can try,” his mum said, smiling, “but pumpkins are heavy. You might need some help.”
Peter marched over to the biggest pumpkin in the patch, easily as round as a beach ball, and wrapped both arms around it. He heaved. He grunted. He wiggled it from side to side. The pumpkin rocked, but it stayed firmly attached to its curly green vine. “It won’t come off,” Peter said, a little frustrated now.
His cheeks puffed out with effort. Gracie trotted over and inspected the pumpkin very seriously, walking a full circle around it with her nose to the ground. Then she sat down beside Peter and gave one small encouraging bark, as if to say, “You can do this. I believe in you.” “You need to find the stem and give it a gentle twist,” his mum said, kneeling beside him. “Pumpkins don’t like to be yanked. They like to be asked nicely.”
Peter found the thick green stem at the top of the pumpkin. He held it with both hands, the way his mum showed him, and twisted slowly. The stem gave way, and the pumpkin rolled free into Peter’s waiting arms, so heavy he had to sit down quickly in the dirt to keep it from dropping, and with an oof that made his mum laugh.
“I did it. I did it, Gracie. Look how big it is.” Gracie bounded over and pressed her nose right against the orange belly of the pumpkin, giving it one long, thorough sniff of approval before licking Peter’s cheek, which made him giggle and nearly topple the pumpkin all over again. The sun climbed higher and higher as the morning went on.
Peter and Gracie picked the cabbage, round and heavy, with Peter needing both arms just to carry one. They picked tomatoes warm from the sun, which Gracie was absolutely convinced were the tastiest thing in the whole garden, judging by how many times she tried to sneak one when no one was looking.
They picked zucchini so long that Peter used one like a pretend sword until his mum gently suggested it belonged in the basket, not in a sword fight. In between all the picking, Peter and his mum counted everything they found, and Gracie helped by trotting back and forth between the rows like a very fluffy, very serious inspector. “Six tomatoes,” Peter called out, lining them up on a flat rock like little red soldiers. “Seven,” he corrected himself, spotting one hiding under a leaf.
Gracie found the eighth one all by herself, nosing it gently out from behind a zucchini plant and sitting beside it proudly until Peter came to add it to the row.
“You have a good nose for tomatoes,” Peter told her, and Gracie’s tail thumped so hard against the garden fence that a shower of dew sprinkled down from the leaves above, making them both laugh. By late morning, the wicker baskets were overflowing. Bright orange carrots, deep purple cabbages, green beans piled like little logs, a mountain of red tomatoes, and one enormous, proud pumpkin sitting in its very own basket because nothing else could fit beside it.
Peter flopped down on the grass, tired but happy, with Gracie flopping right down beside him, her tongue lolling out in a doggy smile. Her white fur was speckled with dirt, and one stray bean leaf was stuck comically to the top of her head like a tiny green hat. “We grew all of this,” Peter said quietly, looking out at the garden, a little emptier now, but still full of green leaves and curling vines, “from tiny little seeds.”
“You sure did,” said his mum, sitting down beside them with a proud smile. “It takes a lot of patience to grow a garden, Peter. Weeks of watering and waiting and pulling weeds, even when you’d rather be playing. But look what all that patience got you.” Peter looked at the baskets and then at Gracie, who was busy trying, unsuccessfully, to shake the bean leaf off her head.
“I think Gracie helped the most,” Peter said, scratching behind her fluffy white ears, “even though she ate, like, three carrots.” “Two and a half,” his mum corrected, laughing. “I counted.” Gracie let out a happy little huff, resting her chin on Peter’s knee as if the matter was settled and she, in fact, had done an excellent job.
Before dinner, Peter and his mum filled a small basket with the prettiest carrots, two plump tomatoes, and a bundle of green beans tied together with a piece of garden twine. “Let’s take these next door to Mrs. Alder,” his mum said. “She always misses having a garden of her own.” Peter carried the basket carefully and Gracie trotted along beside him with her chest puffed out as though she was personally escorting the most important delivery on the whole street. When Mrs. Alder opened her door and saw the basket, her face lit up brighter than the afternoon sun.
“Oh my goodness, did you two grow all of this by yourselves?” “Gracie helped,” Peter said seriously, “mostly by eating the samples.” Mrs. Alder laughed so hard she had to wipe her eyes, and she gave Gracie a gentle scratch behind the ears before sending them home with a warm oatmeal cookie for Peter and a small doggy biscuit for Gracie, who accepted hers like a dog receiving a medal.
“Well, that felt as good as picking the pumpkin,” Peter said thoughtfully, walking home with crumbs on his shirt. “Sharing what you grow is part of the harvest too,” his mum said, squeezing his shoulder. That evening, the whole family gathered around the table for a special harvest dinner. Roasted carrots, buttery green beans, a rich tomato soup, bread that filled the whole house with a sweet cinnamon smell.
Every single bite had come from their own backyard.
“To the best garden helpers on Vancouver Island,” Peter’s mum said, raising her glass of milk for a toast. “To me and Gracie,” Peter cheered, clinking his glass gently against hers. And under the table, right on cue, Gracie thumped her tail against the floor.
Thump, thump, thump, thump. Because even though she wasn’t allowed at the table, she knew deep in her fluffy heart that this harvest had absolutely 100% been a team effort. And later that night, as Peter climbed into bed with dirt still smudged behind one ear, Gracie curled up on the rug beside him with a contented sigh, dreaming, most likely, of carrots.
Tomorrow there would be new seeds to plant, but tonight there was just a full belly, a tired boy, a happy dog, and a garden that had given them everything it had.
FiresideBooks: Fireside Books in Parksville and BookWyrm in Port Alberni offer used books at just five dollars or less. Both locations make growing your personal library easier than ever. New and used books, and so much more. Order online at firesidebooks.ca and pick up at either location. Details available online. Ask about returning books for a book credit. Two locations, one amazing adventure in browsing.
