Our daughter always wants to help Mom and Dad. For countless reasons this makes us happy… but there are some times we don’t really need toddler help. An example of this is the family garden. Now my parents had us in the garden as long as I can remember, but they had the space for humongous gardens. We only have room for a few small beds so there is less room for error.
Toddler hands have a hard time telling the difference between plants and weeds, but we want her keep her sense of wonder and curiosity. So what should we do? Our answer is to have dad build her her own garden. A place for her to plant, pick and decorate in any way she likes. While at the same time protecting the families food supply.
So on a nice spring afternoon we had a daddy-daughter day of turning some spare topsoil and spare bricks we pulled out of the yard last year and into the new garden. Daddy did most of the digging, all of the bricks, and daughter (and her imaginary dinosaur friend) did a lot of stick piling in the yard. Afterwards we took a trip to the store to buy the seeds that she liked.
Once home we planted the seeds that were correct for the season, and took the rest inside. We need to plant a few seeds in the house over the next week or so, but we also talked about buying some strawberry plants once the weather warms up a little. Dad also needs to find some place in the yard to plant pumpkins. We both had dreams of Jack-o-lanterns while at the store.
Spring is official here at our house… but I just heard we may get a little snow tomorrow. Welcome to Michigan.
