Gardening, toddler time

No I don’t have a farm yet but I am into low key gardening mode. In preparation of real outside gardening I had to teach my toddler the do and don’ts of “ baby pants” as he calls them. We went off the local garden supply and bought some planting mix and seeds. I decided to start with beans which being fast and easy would work well with the attention span of a 2 ½ year old. We also picked up some dwarf sun flowers to go with the left over basil and heritage tomatoes I had at home.

Once home we filled our pots, they were mostly reused potting containers from last years trip the garden center and some fancy ceramics for indoor use. Mess aside, we managed to plant the appropriate amount of seeds at the correct depth, watered and waited.

Each day my son tells mommy to water “baby pants” just as he hounded her to do with the Christmas tree months earlier. We have had a number of fights over his desire to use his diggers and other earth moving toys in the pots but he’s catching on to the need to not disturb the plants, if you expect them to grow! The sun flowers came up almost instantly followed by the tomatoes and the beans, I was ready to fire the basil out just about when the first seed sprouted.

So far we’ve been lucky, no spilled pots of wet soil or plants pulled out. However by some magic a bean did come up in the basil pot. An interrogation has led us to the conclusion that digger felt left out and planted “one bean” all by himself. The plants are thriving and receive frequent visits, they often get talked to over breakfast and are brought various toys to inspect.

I don’t know how extensive my garden will be this year but I am preparing a new bed directly in front of our picture window. The window faces west and heats the house like you would not believe in the late afternoon summer sun. As soon as the ground is thawed and not too dry I’m going to erect a pergola across the both the picture window and sliding door to shade the glass in summer when the sun is high, hopefully this will allow me to use the A/C much less. The pergola over the new garden will give some partial shelter to the garden and a structure either side of the window for runner beans and morning glorys, the center will have tomatoes and perhaps peppers and herbs. This plot is one of the favorite places for the various diggers to play so the indoor plant lesson are essential if I expect anything to survive a toddlers imagination. The prognosis for the survivability of this years garden ? only time will tell.