YO MAMA: True facts about gardening with a toddler
OPINION
1. All your toddler wants to do is play with dirt… until you actually start gardening.
2. Seed packets make great rattles until your toddler picks up an open pack of beans.
3. Your toddler won’t be nearly as excited as you thought they’d be when the seeds germinate. In fact, they would like to dump out all the trays and start again.
4. You will forget to water your plants at least four times a week.
5. Your popsicle stick markers will get moved around weekly until you have no idea what anything is.
6. Bags of fertilizer are well-proven toddler attractants — keep them up high.
7. Thinning plants with your child is fun! Wait, where did all the seedlings go….
8. Your toddler will most definitely eat the first green tomato on the vine and pick all your flower buds before they bloom.
9. Most of your plants will get trampled on.
10. Decoys and distractions (toy dump trucks, bubble machines, funnels, etc) won’t work long enough to plant a row of carrots.
11. Neither will child containment devices (AKA playpens) but a hole in the ground might buy you some time.
12. Once your child discovers how to use the hose you can consider them armed and dangerous (but at least they’ll be entertained).
13. There is a 100% chance that your toddler will pelt your fragile seedlings with the jet setting.
14. Toddlers know the difference between play tools and real tools. Anything made with soft edges and flimsy plastic will instantly be rejected. They have their eyes on the pitchfork.
15. You will dump out at least 25 lbs of dirt from your child’s gumboots over the duration of gardening season. That’s enough to fill a planter box, so you might consider keeping one at the door.
16. The only thing your toddler will want to eat more than the vegetables you are growing is the dirt itself.
17. If your kid gets dirt on their hands (which they inevitably will) DO NOT caution them not to touch their eyes as this will instantly cause them to insert handfuls of potting soil into their eyeballs.
18. You will think often about that statistic regarding the amount of tetanus lurking in the soil.
19. You will permanently have two muddy footprints on your thighs from when your toddler insists “up!” in their dirty gumboots. No, they can’t wait until you clean them off.
20. Fencing your garden to keep your toddler out is a great way to invite climbing and further trampling.
21. The watering can will be your kid’s new favourite beverage container.
22. Solar lights look really pretty in the flower garden until your toddler decides to turn them into junk art.
23. Despite all of the above, watching your toddler eat fresh vegetables out of the garden is worth the effort. Even if they refuse to eat the exact same vegetables off their dinner plate.
— Charlotte Helston gave birth to her first child, a rambunctious little boy, in the spring of 2021. Yo Mama is her weekly reflection on the wild, exhilarating, beautiful, messy, awe-inspiring journey of parenthood.
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