Every parent knows kids love dirt, so why not add to their enjoyment with a little gardening?

Family Fun magazine offers the following fun gardening tips:

* Grow veggies from veggies. Save seeds from the vegetables you eat, such as green beans or peppers. Then store them in a cool, dry place for future planting.

* Chart a garden's growth. Track the growth of tall flowers such as sunflowers. First, have your kids trace their bodies and draw a 10-foot ruler on butcher paper. Then have them measure the sunflower weekly and track its progress next to the ruler and family members' heights.

* Make weeding a game. How do you get your kids to "weed" when they might not know what a weed is? Give each child one variety of weed and ask them to pull only plants that match it.

* Open a family farmers market. Spark a passion for gardening and appeal to your children's entrepreneurial spirit by offering to pay for vegetables they grow. Kids can devise business plans and stake out their own plots to achieve horticultural and financial bounty.

- Lisa Carricaburu

Podcast advises busy parents on best books

The modern parent, by definition, doesn't have enough time to sleep, let alone research reading opportunities for kids. That's why the creators of "Just One More Book" have produced a podcast and Web site that discuss "children's books we love, and why we love them" in a form busy parents can easily use, according to Andrea Ross, who founded the resource with her husband, Mark Blevis.

Released three times a week, the free podcast brings together children's book authors, illustrators, readers and publishers. Episodes can be played from the Web site, www.justonemorebook.com, or downloaded to an mp3 player

- Jennifer Barrett

Cookbook is a guide to appetizers and art

Getting children interested in cooking is all about making it fun. Cookbook author Pam Abrams wants to show you how. Her recent book, Gadgetology (Harvard Common Press, $14.95), offers creative ideas for using 35 common kitchen gadgets for a variety of food and craft projects.

Abrams offers simple recipes and projects for each gadget. A meat mallet makes chicken satay, as well as smashed berry ''paintings.'' Skewers go into kebabs and stick figures (cork bodies and paper clothing added). A salad spinner is used to make spinach quesadillas and to create spin art with paper and food coloring.

Some of the projects will require close adult supervision. But most, such as turning a balloon whisk into a maraca by filling it with bells and craft pompoms, are child-friendly.

- The Associated Press