how i
conquered my fear of gardening
|by Carrie Saum
This year, I conquered my fear of
gardening.
As with anything involving a toddler, things
did not go as planned.
I have a gorgeous little community plot, 20
feet from my front door. I’ve tried to muster up the courage to begin growing food for
years, and as a chronic Black Thumb, I worried that I would kill all of the things. So, I
conducted an experiment. I bought a basil
plant, and vowed if I could keep this one small
plant alive for at least a month in my house, I
would try my hand at gardening this summer.
My Zen feelings about gardening with my
kiddo dissolved about 10 minutes into our
first foray at the plot. I was trying to dig holes
to plant our tender starters while E tried to
pull up all of the green things and my progress right along with it. And because this is
a community garden, he pulled up plants that
were not ours. I stopped every 30 seconds
to still his hands with mine and quietly say,
“Gentle touch. Everything that grows is precious. Green things belong in the ground.”
Then E would immediately resume his Tasmanian devil activity as I began mentally writing
notes of apology to our neighbors who found
onions uprooted or baby kale shredded to
bits.
As it turns out, I was fearful for no reason.
The basil plant survived, and is currently
thriving in my small plot of budding earth,
just past my doorstep.
Gardening requires some work, but I genuinely enjoy interacting with nature through
cultivating, caring and digging in the dirt. I
engage my body and mind, and find myself
humming horrible 90’s tunes while pulling up
weeds and spreading compost. Somehow, MC
Hammer and my old food scraps make magic
together.
I decided if I was really going to do this, (and I
am a person who does things full-out or not at
all); I had to bring my toddler, E, into the garden with me. Since he is old enough to be active, I figured he might be old enough to enjoy
learning about the broader aspects of organic
horticulture and getting filthy in the process.
Luckily for us, E is well loved and tolerated
by our little garden village, so nobody held a
grudge. In fact, a few showed E their plots,
explained which plants were which, and
encouraged him to smell the blossoms and
touch the leaves. He loved the special interaction and listened closely as our neighbors
explained the plants to him, absorbing a little
bit of information and 100% of the attention.
I figured out small ways to involve E along the
way. I gave him his own set of tools I found at
a gardening store, as well as a space to work on
his own plants and weeds. He quickly caught
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