Gardening with Kids

Aurora was 2 months old when her first garden season started. She couldn’t walk (or run). It was easy to control how much sun exposure, what or if she put something in her mouth, and Josh and I had a lot of freedom to accomplish the tasks that we set out to do. We expanded from 3 beds to 13 beds, we added a greenhouse plus an in-ground garden that year, so there was A LOT to do.

Last year, her second garden season, was a different story. She was 14 months old in March and already running around. I have videos of her in the greenhouse while I’m starting our tomato seeds and she’s covered head to toe in soil. There were days when it was too hot to be outside with her or she’d wander off to another part of our yard. There were a lot of days when I just didn’t have the energy or capacity for patience. We did a lot of tag-teaming - taking turns and falling into a rhythm with our new roles as parents and gardeners.

The more independent and mobile she gets, the more attentive and flexible we need to be. I said a lot of “don’t eat that”, “that’s not ripe yet” and did a lot of diverting. Overall, I found it rewarding to spend time with her outside and teach her something new. “Here’s a dandelion. It’s yellow. Can you find me another dandelion?”. She was learning new tastes, colors, textures, smells, and sights every time we stepped foot in the garden.

We definitely had some false starts in the garden with her, but mostly we found ways to work with her in the space and I can’t imagine not sharing it with her.

Give them a job or toys to play with

I would ask Aurora to pick all of the chamomile, dead-head my flowers (although some definitely got pulled prematurely), or move soil from one container to the next. She loved carrying our harvest baskets around and that quickly became her responsibility. I made sure to have toys near the garden (although she mostly preferred playing in the soil) - we have a water table, beach bucket, and shovels. She has her own chair and this fall we upgraded her play area with a slide, picnic table, and a playhouse.

Adjust your expectations

I used to spend my weekends in the sun, doing manual labor in the garden or around the house. We would push ourselves to exhaustion and end the day with a cold beer and grilled food. I was in my first trimester when it really dawned on me that I wouldn’t be doing that again for a while. At the time I was trying to dig a tiny bed so I could plant some sunflowers. I was fighting nausea and ended up getting covered in poison ivy.

But 8-hour gardening days not happening now. You need to shift expectations to have 30-minute segments (or less) of productivity. A lot of times when I’m with her in the garden I don’t set out to get anything done - I just walk around, look and touch the plants, and maybe pull a few weeds. I’m looking forward to this season when I will have evenings in the garden after she goes to sleep (I was breastfeeding all of last garden season and sleep was fickle so I didn’t have the evenings to myself).

More time-intensive tasks or chores like trimming hooves on the goats happen when we have family in town so they can be on Aurora duty.

Designate an area just for them

Aurora has a couple of small raised beds that we will allow her to plant and grow (and destroy) as she wishes as she grows. She’s still a bit young to decide what to plant for herself so this year I chose for her. She loved picking the chamomile last year so that will go in her garden this year. I also chose buzz buttons (toothache plant) because I think she’ll have a lot of fun with those! She enjoys picking and eating herbs as well so I’ll plant parsley and cilantro in her beds this summer as well.

I try to find containers or corners of beds in our main garden for her to dig in or play with. My goal is to reduce the number of times I have to say no to her.

Allow for exploration (and destruction)

This may be the hardest part, especially when we have trays and trays of seedlings within her reach! It gets exhausting to constantly say “no, not that one” “don’t touch that” “that tomato is GREEeeeen”! Kids need to be supervised and there are boundaries that we need to set, but kids learn through touching, tasting, smelling, pulling, and seeing the consequences of engaging all of those senses. My goal is to make the garden a fun space and not a stuffy or uptight space. I want her to choose to spend time in the garden with us when she’s older, not feel forced or associate it with strictness or negativity.

Use decoy plants

Decoy plants can be plants in your garden that your kid is allowed to pull, harvest, taste, smell, or destroy. They can be leftover seedlings that you leave in trays or put in small containers. They can be fake plants. Kids like to mimic parents so having decoys to allow them to play with and touch things in the same way you are doing will keep them occupied. I do this with seeds, starts, harvests, and even flowers when I’m making bouquets.

I always try to find something that’s growing in the garden that Aurora can pick herself and that she likes to eat. Last year it was ALL of the peas (seriously, all of them), chamomile, parsley, and marigolds. That’s not to say that she didn’t pick other things, but it helped me to be able to say “do you want to snack on some peas?” instead of “no, no, NO”.