My daughters are gardeners too!

I still have much to write about our visit to Baker Creek, but for the last two evenings my time was occupied with spring planting. The best part about it was that my daughters helped.

Tonight my 14 year old helped plant the third and final wave of the early tomatoes. We planted "Siletz" and "World's Earliest". It was a big help having someone help me remove the plants from the recycled CD spindle containers that they were planted in.

We put crushed egg shells in the planting holes to give the tomatoes added calcium.

 

My 11 year old daughter is great with a rake. Last night she worked up the soil in several of the existing raised beds.

I have different sized beds but I think my daughters like the 4'x4' beds the best. Just like Mel Bartholomew of Square Foot Gardening says, it is easy to reach any part of the bed from all sides. Here my daughters are planting green beans in one 4 foot by 4 foot bed:

Another great thing about raised beds is that you can sit or kneel in the grass and reach in to work the bed. Below my daughter is planting red onions next to the first early tomato batch. Onions are great companion plants for tomatoes.

Gardening with my daughters is great fun. I love when they want to help, but I never make them. When I was a kid, hoeing the garden was part of my chores and I hated it. It took me many years after that to actually like gardening. That is probably also why I don't like hoes (sorry Carol).

I want my daughters to enjoy gardening, and I think they do. They have grown up playing in the garden and helping as much or as little as they want. Now that they are getting older, when they do help, it helps a lot! Why this is great is not because more work gets done. This is great because it gives us some wonderful quality time to talk and be together in nature. I'll gladly take as much of that as possible, even if nothing we planted together grows at all.

Gardening with your children is a priceless gift indeed.

Comments

[May 15, 2008 at 05:27 AM]

It looks like you're all having fun out there!

I have four small boys and a few of them enjoy giving me a hand in the garden. Sometimes too much of a hand, but I always enjoy being with them.

[May 15, 2008 at 05:33 AM]

It's wonderful that your daughters like to garden. They will learn so much working side by side with you, and be better for it.

Carol, May Dreams Gardens

[May 15, 2008 at 06:28 AM]

I hope my Son someday comes around, he hates it now, and wants nothing to do with it. I always hoped to have a girl, but it wasn't meant to be....maybe a Granddaughter someday?

[May 15, 2008 at 11:21 PM]

I love to see your daughters enjoy gardening. I have three daughters and they love gardening, they always liked it from an early age on.

[May 16, 2008 at 10:31 AM]

That's an enlightened view about encouraging your daughters to help. We all grew up growing veggies but we were never made to do it. My niece has no interest whatsoever because she said she was made to do it as a child. hmm

[May 19, 2008 at 06:32 AM]

What fabulous helpers! Wow, your tomatoes look fabulous.

[Brian]

Hello,

Nice work on the garden, what drew me here was the Florida Weave staking apporach to tomatoes. I'll be trying that this year.

Can you tell me what kind of wood you have used for your raised beds? And, do you disassemble them every year? I am having a hard time finding a good insect-resistant hardwood that isn't an arm-and-a-leg.

Brian