Yesterday, I opened the door and my two sons, ages 1 and 3, ran straight for the blueberries. After they’d worked those plants, they dropped down to the strawberries, and then the garbanzo beans, and then the broccoli, and then the peas, and then the carrots. “What else can I eat?” asked my three-year-old.
A major reason I grow a vegetable garden is my kids. I want it to be their grocery store. I have only one rule, which is that they eat whatever they pick. They end up picking green blueberries, white strawberries, and peas that aren’t yet plump, but that’s their business. As long as they eat it, who am I to tell them when it tastes best?
I also want the vegetable garden to be their playground, so I let them get away with a lot. I let them prune even though they sometimes cut flowering raspberry canes. I let them water even though they occasionally water weeds. I let them dig even though they often dig up seedlings. I have no fence around the vegetable beds, so they are free to stomp through them at will, and they sometimes stomp and kill baby plants.
But I also see the vegetable garden as their classroom. Slowly but surely, I’m teaching them which plants to water and why and how; sprinkle like rain, don’t pour and make a river, I say. The older one knows where the paths are and where the beds are now, and he helps direct the one-year-old. “Don’t step on the baby plants, baby boy,” I’ve heard him say.
And then there are lessons from nature, like the metamorphoses of insects. The boys know that ladybugs are friendly to our garden, and they also can identify ladybug larvae, which they often point out to me. I didn’t know ladybug larvae until a few years ago!
They understand why a gopher is a garden enemy — it eats our food, we say. And unfortunately, we have to trap one when we can, and we feed it to the cat. The food chain. They get it.
Speaking of pests, I told my father-in-law the other day that I see my boys as garden pests that I need to compensate for by planting extra because I know they’re going to cause a certain amount of damage. But they’re unique pests in that, unlike the gopher, if you involve them in the workings of the garden they eventually are able to help take care of it and even make it flourish in ways you hadn’t imagined.
My great uncle gave me some sunflower seeds a few months back. I told my three-year-old that the seeds were his to plant. I gave him no other directions or assistance. He scratched and buried them here and there, partially in a bed and partially in a path, some seemingly too deep and others too shallow. I figured they were unlikely to grow because he wouldn’t keep up with watering so it didn’t matter, but we had quite the consistent rains this winter and they took off. I had already planned to put peas in that bed and I went ahead with that plan despite the growing sunflowers. Now in May, we’re eating the peas as they climb the sunflower stalks, the finches stop by each morning to eat the sunflower leaves, but there’s still enough foliage to give the peas respite from the afternoon sun, and the sunflowers are taller than me and about to open bloom.
I would never have thought to grow peas under sunflowers. It’s only something that happened because of the spark of life that is kids in a garden.
You might also like to read this post:
Growing fruits and vegetables for kids
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Awesome post!!!
Good fathering!! Reminds me to get my kids out to our trees, which I missed out on this morning.
I’m from Minnesota where rhubarb grows wild every year. Have you had any luck with it in S. California? I brought back some baby plants last time I went to MN but the next day the snails (that I never knew I even had!) had eaten all the leaves and killed the little plants. Would LOVE to be able to grow it here but not sure if it is possible.???
Yvonne, I’ve never tried to grow rhubarb, but I know a friend who seemed to grow it well here in Southern California some years ago. I’ll do some investigation and post here in the comments what I find.
I talked to someone who has had success with rhubarb and someone who has tried repeatedly but failed.
My friend who failed said that he has tried growing it three or four times, in the ground, in a raised bed, in a pot, in the sun, and in a more shaded spot. He planted once in late summer and the other times in spring. His plants did OK for a few months and then started dying.
On the other hand, my friend who successfully grows rhubarb (in San Diego) said that he grows the variety called Victoria in a full sun location, and he plants them as bare root plants in January. (That may be a key difference: to start them in the dead of winter.)
He said he treats them like artichokes and starts to withhold water in August. He also said that he harvests a few stalks in the first year, and then harvests as many as he can use in following years. He has replaced his rhubarb plants about every four years.
He grew up in Canada and said, “I find they don’t get as red as I remember, but they definitely taste great.”
I hope that helps. I may try growing some this winter, and I’ll post my results if I do. Let me know of your results if you try again, too.
I’ve received a few more pieces of good information from someone who has experimented with growing rhubarb in Southern California, specifically at Cuyamaca College (in other words, not really close to the beach).
He says that the variety that performed best for him is called Strawberry. And in general, varieties with dark red stems do not seem to perform as well here as the greener stemmed varieties.
He also says that you should be careful not to water the plants frequently right at their crowns in the summer because rhubarb is very susceptible to phytophthora root rot. Plant them in well drained soil and let the plants go dormant when the growth slows in late summer (by cutting back on the watering, as with artichokes, as I mentioned above).
Thanks for writing Greg! I love this reminder- and the freedom you’ve given your boys in the garden. Maybe I should let Winnie eat all those green tomatoes she’s been trying to get her hands on! Your way definitely seems more fun 🙂
Greg, you are so awesome! You give your wife and boys the best life. We love to be part of it. We miss you guys. Love you brother!
This is the post I’ve been looking for. Thanks Greg.
I am 75 years old from Kathmandu, Nepal. I have a grand son 6 years old. When he comes back from his school, even before reaching home his only proposal is “Grand P” we will go to farm today, OK? Unless something like drizzling or too sunny I have to convince him to postpond it. The weeds I have told him as bad plants and they need to be taken out from their root. He does that, but in places where it would not be that important. Somehow he does not like to work where I suggest. As an alternative he has suggested that I should another set of tools for me which I am thinking to do one of these days.
Thanks for this, Benu! Some of the best gardening items I’ve bought are small gloves for my sons. They love to wear them and move stones or pull weeds or prune vines, etc.