Of the gardening (spin-off) activities I can do with Mabel is get her to help me grind dried goods up in the small coffee grinder. To keep her entertained, she needs to see what's happening and to know she's not just doing busy work. Powdering things up is an activity with immediate results, and she gets to do most of the actual work. So far we've done this twice: first pulverizing tomato peels into a seasoning something like tomato-bent paprika, the second was to turn homegrown (and dried) stevia into a powder. All-in-all it's a time consuming tasks and requires an extra bit of patience with the toddler since the powder ends up everywhere, but our time together making things and the pride on M's face when we're done make it that much better. Plus, look how pretty they are together!