The most luscious month of the year is always abundant around here.  Nothing big and bold, but lots of busy hands gathering making, tidying and creating around here.  Here are a few glimpses of our Autumn Abundance that is just beginning.

 

Oh and so much more to come!

I approach gardening with kids much like I approach anything with kids; with great joy, patience and as much non-attachment to the outcome as I can muster, this way when it’s fun it fun and when it’s done it’s done.

Because I am a what you might call a serious gardener, meaning I spend a larger than average time in my garden as well as garden for a living, I have had to figure out ways to not only share my great love of the earth with my son (and many other children along the way) but figure out the balance of engaging him AND getting stuff done.  This has been of course been achieved with varying degrees of success over the seasons but with his help and the help of many years as a schoolyard garden teacher I have learned a trick or two that may be helpful to you.

Start early:

Not only is fresh air and sun shine good for you and your child post-partum, but getting babies used to where you plan to spend a lot of time with them is helpful.  As they arrive on this earth, providing them with safe comfortable ways to be here is crucial if they are to feel like they belong on this good green earth.

When my son was very young I put him in a little basket in the green house.  It was warm and the light was filtered so I felt he was safe from the elements and I could be nearby, sometimes not gardening at all, but given back my hands for a moment while he gazed up at the green.  It is still our chosen play spot during the colder months of the year.

When he got a little older he spent lots of time on his back right in the garden patch…

luckily there are very few itchy things to worry about here in New Mexcio whichs brings great ease to a gardening mothers heart.

But I always made sure he was well protected when the sun was bright.  He always slept really well outside.

Provide Safe Spaces:

As a new mother on a somewhat unruly homestead I was often nervous about where to let him roam and what was really ok to let a baby wander into. Those first couple of years my husband did a lot of baby proofing in my behalf.  Adding brick paths

Adding little edges, walls and fences to help him define boundaries of plants and people space, and of course give him something to pull himself up on and lots of safe grazing foods within reach.

Let them explore:

So much of the world is fascinating and marvelous when you are brand new and whenever I let go enough of say a wet baby on a chilly cold day, I am able to witness some of the worlds greatest delights!!  And of course had a towel and warm bath waiting.

Let them feel:

Wet and dirty, flowing water, gritty sand.  Children’s whole beings are big sensory organs and their job is to take in the world and process it.  The garden is the greatest place to experience the feel the texture of life and open our senses to all the miracles of sensory awareness the world holds and it truly is all right there in our own backyards.

Sometimes that means letting them pluck a flower or two or eating some dirt, but the casualties are most likely worth it!

Keep them with you:

I think one of our greatest successes is that when I work in the garden, my son comes with me or at least up till now at 3 years old.  Sure I sneak moments to myself and save certain jobs for when he is with someone else, but mostly I just tell him it is time for working in the garden and he joins right in.

When he was small of course a pile of gravel was enough keep him happy , or a bowl of water or a pile of dirt….but as he grew he would wander off and get into places I was not so fond of….I started to find toddler size boot prints all throughout freshly sprouted seed beds so yes, I baby proofed the garden a bit.  It ran string about 2 feet high around the beds as boundaries and they did in fact stop him from trampling, though a few other visiting toddlers weren’t slowed in the slightest and just startled right over….I also put recycled tiles in the garden paths as stepping-stones and it seemed to be more entertaining to jump from one to another than tramp the plants, so we were both happy with that!

Give them spaces of their own

When kids get even older, say 2, it is important to set them up with projects you can let them work on without having to keep too close an eye.  They want to help and have meaningful work, but if you can work right there with them they need to have something important to do that does contribute to the job at hand.  If I am sowing flats of example, my son stirs the soil and fills the trays.  Often he has his own agenda when we enter a space like the greenhouse and wants to water all the plant accessible to him with his own watering can.

Give them meaningful work and real tools:

My husband is a champion of involving our son in projects.  He somehow has two of every thing and can set him up to work right by his side.  He also seems to have varying sizes of things so that our son had a real hammer, but one that fit in his hands and wasn’t a danger, not only so he doesn’t get so frustrated by working with something that simply doesn’t fit him, but so he can actually succeed at hitting a nail.  Now that he is bigger he is really helpful in delivering things.  He can pass tools and go grab things and loves to help in that way.  They also build real things and I am so grateful we both have real skills to pass on.  I have never seen my son use a toy tool bench, but I wonder if he would just pass it by, once you have had the real thing it is hard to play with plastic imitations.

Be ready, Be reasonable about expectations & Be prepared for breakdowns:

Setting you both up well is really important.  Having the hats and the gloves and the water and the shovels can seem like a lot to think about when you are just going to kneel down for some weeding….but I find my son always wants the same things and if I have them on hand and don’t have completely interrupt my flow to get things for him, we are both happier and can stay focused for much longer.

Just as giving a tiny child a huge hammer and expecting him to wield it well is silly, the same applies to planning a whole day in a sunny garden with 2-year-old, it is simply a bad idea.  Scaling my time has been important to learn so that our time and energy together is fun and not over extended.  Weather it is the right size tool or timeline, tuning into a child’s size and capacity can make or break any experience.

Though no matter how hard you try to prepare, measure and accommodate, when a child is done, he is done!  Yielding to a child’s needs is another good lesson I have learned in my power garden sessions.  Sometimes they are just done before you are and want different things at different times.  Now that my son is three he can say, “I am hungry” or “I am all done” and I can say “Ok, I will finish up here and we will go get a snack.”  It is all very civilized, however this time last year he simply could not communicate so well and our gardening together would often end in me stepping too far away for a moment and him wailing in worry, or some other seemingly insignificant thing that would abruptly end our blissful garden sessions.  But I took it all in stride.  One of the hardest things to learn as a mother in these first couple of years is that my child and I have very different needs, though any stranger could tell that just by looking at us, I really had a hard time accommodating both what he wanted and I wanted at the same time.  But as I yielded, so did he and we always managed to work together and get those seeds in the ground or the crops in from the field as well and snuggle, nurse and rest together.  And just remember, just because it may end in tears one day, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try again, maybe with a few lessons learned, but there is always another chance to grow together!

Do things together:Which often mean slowing down and letting go.

All this said I must admit the biggest lesson I have learned is that being a serious gardener and a good garden mentor don’t always align.  I often feel I must get certain things done in a certain amount of time and little ones simply don’t get that.  Yes, I do power garden on my own, but remembering that my helpers, both young and old are still learning to connect, love and savor the earth is a great lesson for me, when did I get so busy anyway?   Most of what I learn is that being in the moment really does make it last longer and gives us more.  Being in the garden with my son does involve some boundaries and guidance, but mostly it is truly a time for reverence and connection.  We are sharing in each other and in the world together and sincerely, nothing could be finer and truly neither of us want anything more.

 

And now look at him!!  My little garden guy.  Marveling at the wonders all around him, sharing the miracles of life with those close to him and working, always working!!  Love that little garden guy!

 

PS After I wrote this I came across and similar and beautiful post about gardening with kids here where I borrowed this quote from:

“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.”

― Rachel Carson

 

 

 

Ahh this glorious rain, bags and baskets over flowing with seeds and fruits; the Lammas season is upon us, the harvest time has begun.  This time last week all I could think about was all that rain wasted, the seeds I didn’t sow and yes I was literally in the weeds  as they were toppling over head.  But now, thanks to the wise words of a circle of friends I am seeing the beautiful mystery in all that is unfolding without my careful sowing.  My garden is literally only half seeds I sowed, the rest were dropped there by birds and trees and mysterious forces all around, but all that is sprouting around me is a gift and I am drinking it in.  I have let go of my quest for perfection, at least in the garden for starters, the weeds literally fall over me as I scratch around them and throw out handful of seeds to the wet earth with wild abandon.  There still is many moons of growth in my garden and half way through the year I am ready to set out more wishes, intentions and hopes of more food for the family.

This year has been intense from dry and scarce to overflowing floods…the extremes are truly a humble reminder that it is not all up to us…..As we witness the extremes in the world around us it is really hard in integrate all that seems to be happening right now I ask myself has the world always been this intense and we just were more insulted in our communities without mass media we just didn’t have to take it all in?  I really don’t know but I feel responsible some how to take it in, to be aware, to act as effectively as I can to create hope, support and effect positive change…to do enough!!

And some days lately I simply can’t muster much of anything.  Remember those seeds my son and I threw out this spring on our new land…well I never really watered, went away and then got too tired and too hot to care.  I kind of wrote it off as a personal failure and then we wandered up there last evening and let my tell you it is a wild mess!!! But what went from being the dream of a flower farm then quickly one more project I couldn’t quite maintain, has magically transformed back into a flower farm with any of my doing.  While I slept and fretted about all the work I had to do, but simply did nothing, the ‘weeds’ grew into a million sunflowers and are all about to bloom.  BOOM, a flower farm with nothing but Mother Nature to thank,(and of course the previous farmers who dropped and ton of sunflowers seeds in the earth last year without me knowing).

So though I am still sneaking seeds in the ground it is time to reap and appreciate, the ripeness of the season, all that we are given and all that is.  In this high time of summer with all the intensity that it has brought, we must remember to rejoice in all that we have, which is more than so many and pray for the same simple abundance for all beings on this earth.  May the fullness of this season nourish all and may we all know what we need to do and may that be enough, at least for now.

The Journey- by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice–

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!” 

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy 

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen 

branches and stones.

But little by little, 

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do—

determined to save 

the only life you could save.