Gardening with my Baby

I used to work for many hours at a time on projects. Now with a breastfeeding, cosleeping, contact napping baby, I've had to change my mindset. I have minutes instead of hours to do household tasks. I fold a few pieces of laundry, then take care of Roo's needs. Fold a couple more pieces, and then redirect Roo from whatever she's not supposed to get into.
I'm itching to have a productive garden again this year (the last 2 years were neglected instead of productive), and I'm overwhelmed with all that needs to be done for it.

I'm challenging myself to do *something* daily for my garden. At least a baby step, the equivalent of folding a few pieces of laundry.

Jan 1 - Put sweet potatoes in water. I had a few left from my garden 2 summers ago. They were slightly shriveled and the sprouts looked halfway dead, so I'm going to see if they can be revived.

Jan 2 - Create a map/key of perennial plantings.

Jan 3 - Take inventory of herb seeds.

Jan 4 - Weed and mulch a small part of the pathway at the garden's entrance. The sun was out after multiple days of rain, and it was glorious to be outside with a blue sky!

I did something daily for the garden in January and February. I wasn't so stringent in March, but often did a baby step. Half of the sweet potatoes produced slips, which was exciting since they looked beyond hope.

My area has likely had its last spring frost, so my baby steps this month have involved weeding small areas, transplanting one plant at a time, and sowing a few seeds per day.

Good approach to tackle things in a doable way!  Not sure if you have these two easy garden items yet or not, but walking anions and asparagus are two "perenials" that will continue to produce year after year with minimal care from you.

Jd Gonzalez wrote:Good approach to tackle things in a doable way!  Not sure if you have these two easy garden items yet or not, but walking anions and asparagus are two "perenials" that will continue to produce year after year with minimal care from you.

I do have walking onions and asparagus. It was exciting to have something to harvest last year even with zero input or maintenance from me. Though now the areas desperately need to be weeded!

My husband likes to take Roo to the park a few times each week for daddy-daughter time. There are so many things that I could tackle during that time, and it's difficult to prioritize. But that's also "me" time. I tell them, "If y'all get to play outside, then I get to play outside," and for part of the time that they're gone, I do gardening things that I can't do with Roo beside me.

I'm a stay-at-home mom, and Roo is with me nearly 24/7. I'm figuring out how to garden with her. When I organized seeds, she played with a few sealed packs. That's the day I learned that she could open Ziploc bags, and we ended up with luffa seeds all over the floor. When I soaked seeds before planting, she helped pour them in the water (leaving me to pick up the pile that missed the bowl of water when she dumped them out).

Roo helped me plant oats by holding the seed bag and giving me handfuls of seeds. When I didn't grab them fast enough, she'd drop the handful and reach for another one. Apparently it was great seed with a high germination rate, because we have clumps of oatgrass growing wherever they were dropped.

I'm learning to be patient and share my garden space. For many years, it was"mine," and it's quickly becoming mine and Roo's. I love to watch her in the garden. At 19 months, she can recognize basil, mint, wood sorrel, raspberries, tomatoes, and bee balm. It's fun to watch her wander around as she nibbles an herb leaf or how excited she gets about finding a ripe raspberry to eat. I didn't realize how well she could identify some plants until we were in a different area of the yard. I was cutting back a tree and looked down to see her picking wood sorrel to munch on. When we walk past a forest edge, she also recognizes the wild blackberries and signs "hurt" since we've talked about the canes having sharp thorns.

My big next step is to figure out how to remove and suppress the weeds that have overtaken the garden the last few years. I've barely put a dent in them, and blackberries and invasive honeysuckle are encroaching.

This is such a beautiful story. I just had a thought it would be cool to see this thread document Roo's entire childhood. It would make a good book, too.

Cherish the time you two have together as kids grow up so fast.

Thank you for sharing your seed explorations and gardening adventures.

Fathers take so much more interest in kids nowadays than when my kids were growing up, at least that is the way our family and other fathers that I have known.

There's something captivating about a container of dried beans. I mixed 3 types -- white, black, and speckled limas -- and it's entertained Roo for longer and more frequently than I expected. When she tires of digging in the dirt or picking dandelion flowers, she's content to play with the beans while I sit nearby pulling weeds or doing other tasks. She appears nearly mesmerized, laying on her side and watching the beans fall as she holds up handfuls to drop over and over. It also means there are random bean plants around the yard since she doesn't keep all of the beans on the sheet that I laid out.

On a different topic -- I've had prickly pear cactus in front of my house for a few years. I tried other plants in the packed red clay, but the cactus is the only thing that lived. I kept putting off trying the fruit, intimidated about working around the thorns. I've been trying new foods with Roo, so I figured it was time that we tried the prickly pear fruit. I'm proud of her for being adventurous enough to try, but she was not impressed! After the internet claimed the fruit "tastes somewhat sweet to syrupy sweet," the actual flavor wasn't what I expected either. I could see it making a a good jam, but it's not something I plan to eat straight off the plant on a regular basis.

Nikki Roche wrote:. She appears nearly mesmerized, laying on her side and watching the beans fall as she holds up handfuls to drop over and over. It also means there are random bean plants around the yard since she doesn't keep all of the beans on the sheet that I laid out.

Beans are really fun for sensory play. Toddlers are great for shelling them too. 😁

A couple of years ago, while I was planting seeds one spring, I gave my then 2yo a handful of beans to keep him busy and we had random green beans all over the garden that year. Which was great because my own beans failed that year! This year I gave that same kid a handful of onion sets to plant wherever he wanted and again, my onions failed but we had some lovely random onions throughout the rest of the garden. 😂

Your little one is adorable. Love her facial expressions in the pictures. 🤗

Thank you, Jordan and Anne. Jenny, I could see that happening here, too -- my kid's plants doing better than mine!

I have to let go of many gardening plans when it comes to doing it with Roo. She was handing me apple seeds while I dug holes to plant them, but she had other plans. Halfway through, she dumped the remaining seeds into a pile of leaves. It wasn't quite where I hoped to grow an abundance of apple trees, but we'll see what happens.

It rained heavily recently, and lots of mushrooms popped up. Roo went around poking each one, telling them "hi" and "buh-bye." She was fascinated with their undersides. It makes me even more interested in growing edible mushrooms in the garden area.

Roo and I cut pieces of vine to use on the trellis that we're building. She was determined to have her turns with cutting, so I held thin pieces of vine while she cut. It amazes me what a 21-month old can be capable of.

I underestimate the novelty of playing outside for a toddler with limited life experience. I took her into an area of the garden that I had recently chopped and dropped, thinking I'd have just a couple of minutes before she was ready to wander off. Instead, she sat down and entertained herself by picking through the chopped weeds, inspecting different ones. She found a long stick and poked through the cuttings, and then she laid down on top of them like it was the most comfortable mattress. When I cut nearby plants and seeds floated through the air, she poked them like she was popping bubbles.

I've seen many parents say their kid's haphazardly planted areas grow better than their own. I'm hoping that's the case, because the seeds Roo just helped me plant are at a wide variety of depths and spacing. She said "seeds" for the first time while we were planting (sounded like "she" and was her first "s" word), and then tried to say the names of the seeds. Elecampane threw her for a loop.

Some days, Roo is content to play with her dolls beside me. Other days, she wants to wander or look at something far away from where I want to work. I have lists of "things I'd like to do" instead of "have to do" so that I can follow her lead. Otherwise, I'd be fully frustrated on the days that she wants to explore the other side of the yard from where my to-dos are. Or I'd get nothing done with my to-dos because she'd be in my lap trying to get my attention, bored with where we're at.

I'm not bringing my phone as often to get photos of Roo outside. She's becoming obsessive about the phone, and I'm implementing a boundary that she can play on the phone inside only. Now I have to lead by example. So instead of an outdoor pic, here's Roo helping me bake. She's currently fascinated by eggs, so this is her playing in the eggs that she helped me crack.

Wow, talk about going down memory lane. Roo looks just like my daughter Alyson when she was that age. I had just took over the family farm and had so much to do, but I just took Alyson along with me, and took many pictures that look like yours do.

Today she is 16 years old, but we have a very close bond.

Looks like Roo is having a good time. My girls used to love busting dirt clods with a rubber mallet and putting small stones in a plastic bucket then shaking the bucket to make noise...Anything you do with kids in the fresh air and garden will have positive effects for years to come;

My daughter will be eight in a few months and one thing I've learned is that you have to take tasks in little chunks.  I'm lucky if I can keep her occupied in the garden for twenty minutes at a time before she wants to play in the backyard.   So I then I concentrate my work to that area as I have a few beds there and always other gardening chores I can work on.  I have learned to keep a second set of hand tools in each place as it saves the time of remembering to drag them along.  When she's out of school I often get up at the crack of dawn and try to get as much work done as possible before she wakes up.  Occasionally if my hubby is going to be home, he'll hang out with her so I can get some major work completed.

Take time to enjoy her while she's young as they grow up entirely too fast!

I'm learning to be patient and share my garden space. For many years, it was"mine," and it's quickly becoming mine and Roo's. I love to watch her in the garden. At 19 months, she can recognize basil, mint, wood sorrel, raspberries, tomatoes, and bee balm. It's fun to watch her wander around as she nibbles an herb leaf or how excited she gets about finding a ripe raspberry to eat. I didn't realize how well she could identify some plants until we were in a different area of the yard. I was cutting back a tree and looked down to see her picking wood sorrel to munch on. When we walk past a forest edge, she also recognizes the wild blackberries and signs "hurt" since we've talked about the canes having sharp thorns.

This is one of the biggest challenges as a mom gardening with littles and then growing littles for the first time. My 3 are 10.5 (!), 8, and 2.5 and they join in to varying degrees. I've learned what to claim for my own and what to let go and let them little by little and the feeling of pleasure at having my oldest asking for her own spot, her own plants is worth the past frustration. You're doing great things raising future lovers of the outdoors <3

I don't need to tell anyone here that melding children and nature from birth is the one of the greatest gifts we can give them, but I feel like joining in the shout-out!

What can beat he feel of the beans, the taste of sorrel and prickly pear and basil and dirt, the sounds of the bird calls and the background rhythm/routine of God's creation around them?  We all feel awkward in new environments; I think many children raised with nature in their blood have increased situational awareness and attention to detail that helps them adapt new environments.  

In the inner city, edible weeds grow in the sidewalk cracks.  Although I don't advise eating them, my point is children can be raised with an awareness of nature anywhere.

This thread brings me joy.