Let’s have a thread of funny stories about gardening with children!
Here’s something that happened with my three-year-old today. I decided to water the garden while he was outside with me.
Me: (pouring water on a garden bed) “Happy plants!”
Him: “Happy plant! More water!”
We went back for another bucketful of water.
Me: (pouring it on the next garden patch) “More water for happy plants!”
Him: “No! Sad plant!”
(It took me awhile to realize he was pointing at a weed.)
Me: “You’re right! Sad plant!”
Integrity: (dumping a whole lot of water on a still-living weed) “Happy plant!”
Me: “Yes . . . you’re right, it is.”
Sadly I don’t get too many cute kid gardening stories anymore. Most of them go like this.
Teenager: Mom, why are you watering all these weeds?
Me: Because you haven’t pulled them yet - this is your assigned bed, remember?
Teenager:
Teenager:
Teenager tries to wander off
Me: Clears throat
Teenager: Guess I’ll work on this bed for a while then.
(Laugh.) Yes, that’s what tends to happen when gardening is a chore rather than something the teenager chooses to do. It’s totally reasonable for gardening to be a chore that everyone has to do if it’s part of the family’s food security, of course!
I had a few teenagers who also love plants, and I love to see how they have worked plants and gardening into their adult lives. They are a pleasure to work with in the garden. Sadly, my younger ones are not so much. They DO like to eat though…so we all have to work together as a team! Definitely a reasonable chore!
Hee hee, I have the same dynamic in reverse! My older children aren’t very interested in gardening, which is all right, just a bit sad, because I would have enjoyed sharing it with them.
My three-year-old adores playing outside and seems very interested in plants! Yay, I get to share the joy with him! I try to allow him to include himself in everything, because if he’s this interested in learning how to garden, it’ll be hugely to his benefit to learn how to do it by practicing now.
Right now, we’re working on the most important basic: “Walk on the pathways, not the garden beds. Don’t step on the plants.”
Maybe after that, we can work on, “Please stop pouring the soil back into the hole that Mommy is digging to try to plant a tree!”
Incidentally, he seems to have decided to adopt that particular weed. He keeps going back to it and pouring water on it. I’m kinda chagrined that it’s a weed he’s adopted, but it’s so wonderful that he’s decided he loves a particular plant!
I see that kids and dogs are very similar in this respect. We are trying to train our doggy kids to walk in the walkways not in the beds, don’t dig in the beds or lay in the beds and just because I am digging in the beds doesn’t mean I need your help.
My three-year-old really likes to lie down in the dirt and cover himself with dirt from head to toe . . . I’ve heard that scrubbing one’s body with dirt is actually a good way to clean dead skin cels and excess oil from one’s skin, so it may be an instinct that small children have! Maybe we should all be doing more of it!
I grew up with a small creek (seasonal) in the yard. As kids we played in it as soon as the weather warmed at all. We’d be out in shorts, no shoes, and a hoodie or long sleeve shirt playing in the creek. Like 55° outside and 30-some° creek water. Soon as it got hot we would slather ourselves in the sand-mud sediment and play spa
We also had lots of little sandstone rocks. We’d grind them up and make “paint” and paint ourselves all over.
Ha ha ha! My son gets so excited whenever I retrieve a bucket of water from the rain tanks. I want to water the plants, but he wants to create mud in the middle of an unplanted area to play in.
It’s totally reasonable for gardening to be a chore that everyone has to do if it’s part of the family’s food security, of course!
I try to allow him to include himself in everything, because if he’s this interested in learning how to garden, it’ll be hugely to his benefit to learn how to do it by practicing now.
