Memorable Garden Moments With my Children
 (Read 50+ times)
By Agnes Farside
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Children helping in the garden can be a welcome blessing and an irritating problem no matter what age they are. When my sons became old enough to walk, I would let them toddle along beside me to the garden, sit on a blanket near the edge and watch me play in the dirt. Of course they would want to “Help Mommy” plant seeds, pull weeds and water the plants and I would often turn to find them trying to do just that. The only problem was they would step on or pull the plants instead of the weeds and dig up the newly planted seeds.
Not one to discourage my children from learning the art of gardening and what the ‘Good Earth’ can give us if we nature and pamper it; I set out to teach them all the knowledge they would need to become expert gardeners.
I taught them how to distinguish between what is a plant and what is a weed and if they were unsure to ask Mom. I taught them how to not step on seedlings or other plants and how to properly pull weeds. I explained things to them such as when a tomato is ripe for picking or how much water a plant might need. I explained the backs of seed packets to them and what zones meant. I even bought them miniature or toy gardening tools and gave them a small area in the garden that they could have all for themselves and plant whatever type of plant they wanted. This was one of my better ideas, as it was almost a guarantee that they would be in their garden and would do less damage in mine. With all that I had taught them over the years, there were still some memorable moments that I cherish to this day.
I was sharing a garden with my father and the green beans were ready to pick. My oldest son was four and wanted to help Grandpa and I pick green beans. My Dad and I picked up our buckets and headed for the garden. My son quickly picked up his own little gardening bucket (part of the toy gardening tools I had bought him), and followed us to the garden.
My son started picking green beans, but was only getting half of them, so I figured I had better show him the correct way to pick them. I explained to and showed him how to pick them and then let him demonstrate back to me the procedure. He did very well and I showered him with great praise at a job well done. I then told him to go over to the next row to start picking, which was a row between my father and I, and where I could keep an eye on him.
Within a couple minutes, my son returned with his bucket full of green beans and dumped them into my bucket. I was amazed. How could he have picked them so fast? I watched my son go over to my father’s bucket, pull out handfuls of green beans and fill his bucket. He then walked over to me and dumped them in my bucket. My father, who couldn’t stop laughing, said, “You taught him well.” I just shook my head and started laughing too.
As my sons grew, they lost all interest in gardening, until my younger son was in his mid twenties and decided he wanted to plant a garden. I explained to him that even if you enjoy gardening, it was hard work. (Most gardeners don’t consider it work, but relaxing enjoyment.) I told him, depending on the size of your garden, that you might have to be out there every day, weeding, watering, etc. He said he understood and he could do it. He wanted to know what the first thing was he needed to do.
I told him he needed to first stake out an area and then turn the sod. He asked if he could borrow my rototiller to do this, and I explained that the ground was too hard and it first had to be turned. As the area he was planning on for his garden was too small to be plowed by a tractor, the sod would need to be turned by hand and I explained how to do this with a shovel. I told him after he had turned the sod I would be over to till the ground with my rototiller.
A couple days later I loaded up my tiller and went over to my son’s house. The area he had chosen was part of his backyard and he had turned the sod, but that was all. All that was showing was large clumps of sod, turned upside down. He had not removed any of the grass or broken up the sod. I believe we actually could have built a sod house out of what was lying there. I just kind of smiled, shook my head explaining that he needed to break up the clods and remove a lot of the clumps of grass before I could get the rototiller to work up the dirt beneath. My exasperated son said, “But you told me to turn the sod and that is what I did.” I thought for a moment, realized that was what I had told him and it was then that I realized my son had forgotten all of what I had taught him about gardening when he was younger. It took several hours, but we removed the rest of the sod, tilled the ground and my son planted his garden, but he hasn’t had another garden since then.
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Author Bio Box: Agnes Farside
 http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/110407/agnes_farside.html
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