Gardening with Children: What You Get for the Price of a Turnip Seed

Reader Contribution by S.M.R. Saia
Published on September 17, 2009
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My three-year-old daughter has been my steadfast partner in the garden from the get-go. I really want her to learn what food actually is, and where it comes from, and I want her to enjoy being outdoors, getting wet and getting dirty (no problems there). So I really try to incorporate her into the daily garden chores as much as possible, for as long as I can maintain her interest. That said, there are days when the heat, a sinus headache, and my own gardening anxieties get the best of me.

Case in point, I made an early morning of it recently, trying to get our fall transplants in the ground while it was still cool, and while I still had the energy to do it. I have had a few of the seeds come up that I planted a few weeks ago – turnips and daikon, and it looks like some chard or lettuce – but not nearly as many as I had hoped.

After the weedy, sprawling mess that my spring/summer garden has become, the blank slate of a fall space comes as something of a relief.

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