In Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac, in his July essay, “Prairie Birthday” Leopold writes, “Tell me of what plant-birthday a man takes notice, and I shall tell you a good deal about his vocation, his hobbies, his hay fever, and the general level of his ecological education.”
Gardening with twin two year olds- is at least doable. Last year the boys at age one took total attention and I could only follow their whims. We crawled in the grass, rubbing noses with dandelions and playing in cherry blossom petals. This year the boys notice all the "baby plants" as well as the multi-colored flowers and even the differences in leaves. The boys are curious about the soil, the beetles, the worms, and the tools. They help me lay down fresh compost. They help me use a level to straighten our garden boxes. They help me tour the yard to check on our plants and their growth. They love to water- even though we have not needed to do that yet this year.
My latest philosophy of gardening with kids is to do it only as long as it is fun which is probably only 30 minutes not including the breaks. Today we kept our momentum up by taking two main breaks: first a walk to the new neighborhood garden store which turned out to be mainly a place to buy grow lamps but was run by a very friendly man and did have a lead-free hose which we bought. Our second break was to watch the garbage man who noticed the boys and even raised the dumping mechanism “up, up, up and down” over the cab and back, to show the truck in its fullest glory. "More" the boys said.
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