Start them young

Planting marigolds into the raised bed with my three girls, all of us crouched down with our hands in the soil

Back at the rental in 2014 I cut two raised beds into the lawn, and the real reason was the girls. They were small enough that digging in dirt still counted as a treat, and I wanted them in the garden before it turned into something they had to be asked to do.

So we planted them together. Punnets spread all over the deck, marigolds going in along the front, three sets of hands in the soil at once. Nothing went in straight and the spacing was optimistic. It did not matter in the slightest.

The watering was what actually hooked them. Hand a toddler a hose and you are not getting it back. The corn went in and came up, and by the end of December the bed along the fence had gone from bare soil to marigolds and lettuce and half a dozen other things packed shoulder to shoulder. They were pulling leaves off it to eat. That was the bit I was really after, not the flowers - the fact that they knew exactly where it came from.

Punnets of seedlings spread across the deck while we plant, with two of the girls helping at the bed

One of the girls watering a bed of young corn seedlings with the hose

The raised bed along the fence a month later, packed with marigolds, lettuce and flowers

Note to self

Hand them the hose. That is the part that turns it from a chore into a treat.

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