I have to admit…I have had strong ambitions to garden. The execution however was definitely lacking this year. Even though we didn’t get any fruit from our labor, the engagement in the process was very full.
How have you engaged your littles in gardening? Afraid of things getting messy, losing seeds, dirt getting EVERYWHERE? Yeah.. me too. So we went outside, even in the cold spring air. We set boundaries around safe exploration with the dirt and seeds and Mr. Man was able to safely help me plant the seeds. After the task I let him do what he wanted with the left over dirt and pots, and I got out of the way… I wasn’t in the mood to get dirty that day. AND THAT IS OK! But I wasn’t going to stop him from getting dirty if he wanted to.
As things started warming up, here, in Minnesota we were able to get outside again and try our best to replant our seedlings and sprouts in the hopes of growing a fuller plant. We decided to do a deck garden in individual pots for ease of accessing the plants… Well it didn’t quite work out, but that didn’t stop us from trying! Mr. Man was very excited to put in the “vegetable food” and move our little sprouts.
He even went and grabbed his little watering can from his water table to water each pot. He may have drowned a few plants, but I wasn’t going to stop him from trying and helping… I didn’t want to discourage him, but looking back I probably should have put down some watering boundaries…
However, He was so proud of himself and I wasn’t going to stop his from building that pride even more. He even showed responsibility and independently watered them almost every day. Which, again, makes me think we probably drowned our poor little garden.
We did not get any vegetables this year, but we learned a lot. Stay tuned for the next growing season where we set limits around watering, use bigger pots, and start the seeds later in the season….
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