Living without expectations

I have had two kinds of vegetable gardens:  before Eli, and after. . .

It's taken me a while to really settle into this.  Four years in fact, and I'm still working on it.  Before Eli, I double dug beds, hand-removed pests, applied mulch and compost and cover crops at all the right times, and started growing seedlings in February.  I had an ideal intensively grown vegetable garden.

Two years ago, I mentioned to a fellow gardening friend that it was taking some adjustment to gardening with Eli, and that I was learning to change my expectations.  He replied that maybe the best recipe would be to have no expectations at all.  It's taken a couple more seasons, but I have come to agree.

The irony of course is that this is the best gardening year I've had since Eli was born.  Now 4, he is able to "help" more with digging, planting, pulling weeds, and watering.  But I've learned some things along the way about what is appropriate with younger ages.

Year 1:  I was working at Collective Roots when Eli was 3 months to a year old.  I didn't take him to work often, but when I did, we spent most of the time running around in the wheelbarrow.  Then I settled in with him at a patch of the garden that needed serious weeding.  I soaked the soil and let him go to town.  He yanked and pulled and tore up that soil with his bare hands.  My only regret was the new light green knit pants we was wearing, for the last time.  But it struck me how powerful this weeding experience was for a toddler.  He could grasp the weeds, pull them out, look at the roots a bit, and toss them aside.  It's a bit like dropping a ball over and over and over again.  They start to realize the power they have over something.  (And they ingest a lot of beneficial bacteria in the process!)

Year 2:  We moved back to Santa Fe and re-joined the Milagro community garden, which I had been a part of pre-Eli.  I was working part-time and the garden was 20 minutes away.  We managed to turn the soil and work in some compost and manure.  This was my big year of adjusting expectations, and trying to get to none at all.  My biggest frustration was that Eli did not distinguish between "rows" and "paths," and he walked in many of the newly planted areas.  Eli loved the garden, especially eating fresh peas, tomatoes, and carrots from it.  And he loved to dig.  But I made the mistake of not having a designated dig spot right in the plot.  The community garden had a sand box and shade structure, but it was too far away from the plot for Eli to feel comfortable.  He was an excellent waterer, and I always made sure to bring a change of clothes for myself and him.  The garden did okay that year, but I admit it was hard for me.  It was a great success in terms of Eli's enjoyment and experience, but he drowned some plants, dug up others, and I was unable to effectively weed or maintain the garden once planted.  If I were to do that year again, I think I'd just grow fewer things, make a big dig spot, and grow cover crops or place wood chips in the paths so that he could more easily tell where he could go.

Year 3:  We started a garden, but it didn't get very far.  The drive was too far with Eli at this age, and he wasn't interested in helping nearly as much.  We abandoned ship early in the season, and I wondered how many years it would be to ever get back to it again.  I worried that my occasional (or more frequent) irritation when Eli would "destroy" the garden led to an overall dislike of gardening.

Year 4:  Imagine my surprise when Eli was delighted that we would have a garden again.  We moved (again), this time to Boulder.  The community garden is just a short walk from our house, with a creek nearby as well.  Eli and I designed the garden together.  I was determined that this year would be different (and better) than the last 2.  I decided to grow more things that Eli wanted.  Which primarily meant designating a large chunk or our plot to a pumpkin patch.  We also planted a lot more cucumber, zucchini, patty pan squash, and peas everywhere.  I created a designated digging spot for Eli as well, and am currently growing a sunflower house above the digging spot for shade and coziness.  Eli allowed me and Jeff to double dig the whole plot, but it required several wheelbarrow rides at intervals.  He also very actively helped plant in March.  But we had a late spring, and when the peas didn't sprout out of the ground with fruit 2 weeks later, Eli lost interest.  I decided to let him move away from the garden until there was more to look at.  As spring warmed to summer, there were bugs and butterflies, weeds to pull, and plants to water, and Eli showed a renewed interest in the garden.  We have a "diggingest day" once a week where we go to the garden to work.  Eli is always excited to see what there is to eat.  He "helps" water for a few minutes and then turns to his shovels and trucks in his digging spot.  Over the summer, he's dug a large hole which makes a temporary pond each time we visit.  At first I was worried about water conservation. . .  And then I thought back to my friend in Santa Fe, and how to live without expectations. . . And what the tradeoffs really were.  Eli probably uses a few extra gallons of water every time we go to the garden, but he loves being there, and I know that water conservation will only sink in if he develops that connection to the garden at all.

I also grew buckwheat this year as a cover crop and space filler.  My thinking was that I didn't know how much time I'd actually have to garden, so maybe I could just plant some warm weather cover crop in the open spaces.  They suppress weeds, draw beneficial insects to the garden, look nice, and keep me from fretting in the garden.  In the end, I like having the buckwheat so much that I didn't cut it all as my zucchinis take over, and I have scattered buckwheat poking up through the zucchini leaves.  I also created a drought tolerant wildflower spot, for similar reasons.  At some point it occurred to me that this also might help counteract the higher water use for Eli's pond.

Another thing that worked was spending time running around the community garden as a whole, just pushing the wheelbarrows.  Eli became a big "weeder," shouting "weeds" each time he encountered something on the ground and pulling it up.  Since there is mostly grass and bindweed in the paths, I just let him go to town.  We sometimes do this for a full half hour or more.  I've come to see how much it pays off to do this, as he is more eager to go to the garden to play the "weedy game" than he ever was before.  And many trips we don't end up playing it at all.  It's just the positive associations that count.

This is all a long winded way of saying that it works to live without expectations in the garden.  And doing so has allowed me to garden more, weed more, harvest more, and enjoy the process more with Eli.  I'm sure we'll go for more cycles, as Eli develops, but I am hopeful that as long as I can be open to the process, and less attached to the products, that it will be meaningful for us both.