Bailey Van Tassel

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28 Sep 2020
Gardening

Gardening with Toddlers & How to Make it More Than a Meal

With 3 growing boys, I seem to spend a lot of time around a food-filled table. So it’s always been important to me to “make it more than a meal.” After all, that’s where family life really happens… around food. One way I figured out long ago to make meals extra special was to involve my boys in the process, from seed to table. 

 

So from the beginning, before my guys could even walk, they were in the garden with me. While gardening with a toddler is never what I’d call “easy,” I’ve figured out some tips and tricks through the years that have made the process much more manageable for me and truly special for the kids. When they get to help mom make a meal that involves food they’ve helped grow? Now that’s what I call making it more than a meal!

Help your little ones know where they’re not supposed to walk. 

Whatever works for you as a way to mark your rows and let your little one know where they can and can’t venture in the garden.

-Raised beds

-Cover walking rows in grass clippings, straw, or wood chips

-Surround the “can’t walk here” areas with a border of mulch so little feet know when they’re on the mulch they have to stop.

 

Create a just-for-you area in your garden for your toddler. 

Mark off a little section that is all theirs. Maybe have a little bucket filled with their gardening items that they get to carry to their spot whenever it’s gardening-with-mama time. Their bucket could include:

-toddler-size gloves

-mini plastic tools

-old plastic cups

-mini watering can

-an old spray bottle

 

While you do have to tell them “no” a lot in the garden, and they have to learn to respect that space, you also want the whole experience to be wonderful. You’re raising the next generation to understand where their food comes from and how important real food is. With the toddler’s garden corner, the message in the garden can be a 100% “Yes!” 

Have fun. It’s okay for your toddler to get covered in mud. (Trust me, with 3 boys on our farm, I know a lot about messy mud-covered little ones.)  Soon enough they will be planting in rows. This is the time to have a joyful garden; if it winds up pretty jumbled in the process, that’s okay.

Keep your gardening goals simple. No one expects your garden to be perfect. And your little one would never remember it if it was. But they will remember that Mama took them with her into this wonderful place where they could get dirty and grow something delicious. 

While my boys are a little older now, and genuinely helping on our family farm, I’m so thankful for the time I invested in piquing their interest in real food when they were young. If you’re new to gardening, feel free to take it in baby steps and find great local farmer’s markets to supplement what you are able to grow yourself. 

And never feel guilt over store-bought food. Even for those of us who do raise our own meat and veggies, trust me we all have plenty of store-bought goodies in our pantries. The secret is to be picky about the purchased items in your pantry. 

I’ve created a FREE list of healthy pantry staples at the store that itemizes some of the best choices when homemade isn’t an option.  Because everyone needs to improve their pantry and incorporate a little more real food in their family’s menu!

 

If you’d like lots more tips on gardening, real food, and food-growing, please join me over on Instagram. 

 

About Kathleen

Kathleen Henderson is the natural living mentor behind the Roots & Boots blog and Youtube channel and the creator of the brand-new Real Food Family Meal Plan, which is earning 5-star ratings–and saving time and money–in kitchens across the country.
TAGS:gardening
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Hi I’m Bailey

Hi I’m Bailey

Teaching you how to grow veggies in any space while show you how to live a garden-inspired life.

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There is no better strategy than to get to know your own garden, seasons, weather, and microclimate. No reading, no influencer, no tv show knows better. 

To start, deep dive into your specific zip code’s US hardiness zone. If you’re international, Google your city with “hardiness zone” tacked on and see where that gets you. 

Next, get to know your zip code’s monthly weather averages, which is even better than the broad hardiness zone info. A zone 9 in Southern California versus South Carolina is very different because of humidity, storms, pests, etc. 

Frost dates are cool to know as well, but with time, *you* will be able to tell if it’s going to be a cold March or a mild one, and if planting after Mother’s Day has ever led you wrong or instead always been the perfect timing. 

What you’re looking to know is this: when will my seeds/seedlings germinate or thrive best for the time they’re outside? Will there be enough sun and heat for my spring/summer crops, or enough cool but not too cold for my fall/winter veg? It’s about 90 days that you need, and then if you’re starting seeds inside, that can get you a bonus 2 month head start. All seeds are different but these are good generalizations. 

There is simply nothing that can beat your experience, and that my friends is what makes gardening so beautiful, so intuitive, so humbling, and also so confidence building. 

Lean in.
baileyvantassel
baileyvantassel
•
Follow

There is no better strategy than to get to know your own garden, seasons, weather, and microclimate. No reading, no influencer, no tv show knows better.

To start, deep dive into your specific zip code’s US hardiness zone. If you’re international, Google your city with “hardiness zone” tacked on and see where that gets you.

Next, get to know your zip code’s monthly weather averages, which is even better than the broad hardiness zone info. A zone 9 in Southern California versus South Carolina is very different because of humidity, storms, pests, etc.

Frost dates are cool to know as well, but with time, *you* will be able to tell if it’s going to be a cold March or a mild one, and if planting after Mother’s Day has ever led you wrong or instead always been the perfect timing.

What you’re looking to know is this: when will my seeds/seedlings germinate or thrive best for the time they’re outside? Will there be enough sun and heat for my spring/summer crops, or enough cool but not too cold for my fall/winter veg? It’s about 90 days that you need, and then if you’re starting seeds inside, that can get you a bonus 2 month head start. All seeds are different but these are good generalizations.

There is simply nothing that can beat your experience, and that my friends is what makes gardening so beautiful, so intuitive, so humbling, and also so confidence building.

Lean in.

4 days ago
View on Instagram |
1/4
Goes to the beach to play, comes home with driftwood branches for the garden✨. 

Apparently it was the highest tide in 35+ years causing all this debris to be washed up on the beach. I saw the perfect 5’ curved branches and just had to whip up some pea trellises! 

There’s nothing like the feeling of hard work done by your own hands.
baileyvantassel
baileyvantassel
•
Follow

Goes to the beach to play, comes home with driftwood branches for the garden✨.

Apparently it was the highest tide in 35+ years causing all this debris to be washed up on the beach. I saw the perfect 5’ curved branches and just had to whip up some pea trellises!

There’s nothing like the feeling of hard work done by your own hands.

5 days ago
View on Instagram |
2/4
House hunting priorities went from ‘open floor plan’ to ‘open land’ after I started gardening. I didn’t have this passion when we got married - my poor husband. 

It’s a tall order in Southern California and arguably not a thing unless you’re the multi-millionaire kind of wealthy (we’re not). So, I wanted to leave the state. Also not a thing when you own a business here. So, I wanted just enough space for a few garden boxes. 

On the listing for this house, there was no shown space for a garden. But we came anyways, and found this empty patch of mulch. 

Time, vision, and a dedication to the dream ☁️. I also had like three other versions of this space before this one, just to keep me gardening well before I had raised beds. Who was around when I built berms?? 

Any garden design questions? Leave them here and I’ll answer them all 👇🏼

#gardendesign #raisedbeds #kitchengarden
baileyvantassel
baileyvantassel
•
Follow

House hunting priorities went from ‘open floor plan’ to ‘open land’ after I started gardening. I didn’t have this passion when we got married – my poor husband.

It’s a tall order in Southern California and arguably not a thing unless you’re the multi-millionaire kind of wealthy (we’re not). So, I wanted to leave the state. Also not a thing when you own a business here. So, I wanted just enough space for a few garden boxes.

On the listing for this house, there was no shown space for a garden. But we came anyways, and found this empty patch of mulch.

Time, vision, and a dedication to the dream ☁️. I also had like three other versions of this space before this one, just to keep me gardening well before I had raised beds. Who was around when I built berms??

Any garden design questions? Leave them here and I’ll answer them all 👇🏼

#gardendesign #raisedbeds #kitchengarden

2 weeks ago
View on Instagram |
3/4
Virginia Woolf talked about having a room of her own (for writing of course). 

But I too believe that every woman should have a room of her very own - a space for her dream to be worked at. 

I didn’t even know I was building mine the first time around, and ever since that first garden have fought to keep one.  For me, the garden is where I can impose however much or little of myself. 
It can be wild or kept, and often I have to dance with factors far outside myself just to keep it going. 

I realize too that I live in a place in my own mind often, and then bits of real life replicate that dreamy space. Tiny present moments that create the feelings of contentment and peace will match up with the little world I’m striving to create externally. 

And I have come to realize that our rooms - whether indoors or outside, or within a journal, are vessels. We enter with our changing moods, coloring the walls with our predispositions. 

Each day, with these little ones by my side, I hope to showcase more and more of a world where we can build houses by our own hands and hearts - solidly on foundations of hope, perseverance, resilience, optimism, joy, commitment, authenticity, and boundary-less love. 

The world begs for your youness, and that is it. For you to create out here what is also in there. 

Beautiful outfit: @thisisthegreat_ 💘
Virginia Woolf talked about having a room of her own (for writing of course). 

But I too believe that every woman should have a room of her very own - a space for her dream to be worked at. 

I didn’t even know I was building mine the first time around, and ever since that first garden have fought to keep one.  For me, the garden is where I can impose however much or little of myself. 
It can be wild or kept, and often I have to dance with factors far outside myself just to keep it going. 

I realize too that I live in a place in my own mind often, and then bits of real life replicate that dreamy space. Tiny present moments that create the feelings of contentment and peace will match up with the little world I’m striving to create externally. 

And I have come to realize that our rooms - whether indoors or outside, or within a journal, are vessels. We enter with our changing moods, coloring the walls with our predispositions. 

Each day, with these little ones by my side, I hope to showcase more and more of a world where we can build houses by our own hands and hearts - solidly on foundations of hope, perseverance, resilience, optimism, joy, commitment, authenticity, and boundary-less love. 

The world begs for your youness, and that is it. For you to create out here what is also in there. 

Beautiful outfit: @thisisthegreat_ 💘
Virginia Woolf talked about having a room of her own (for writing of course). 

But I too believe that every woman should have a room of her very own - a space for her dream to be worked at. 

I didn’t even know I was building mine the first time around, and ever since that first garden have fought to keep one.  For me, the garden is where I can impose however much or little of myself. 
It can be wild or kept, and often I have to dance with factors far outside myself just to keep it going. 

I realize too that I live in a place in my own mind often, and then bits of real life replicate that dreamy space. Tiny present moments that create the feelings of contentment and peace will match up with the little world I’m striving to create externally. 

And I have come to realize that our rooms - whether indoors or outside, or within a journal, are vessels. We enter with our changing moods, coloring the walls with our predispositions. 

Each day, with these little ones by my side, I hope to showcase more and more of a world where we can build houses by our own hands and hearts - solidly on foundations of hope, perseverance, resilience, optimism, joy, commitment, authenticity, and boundary-less love. 

The world begs for your youness, and that is it. For you to create out here what is also in there. 

Beautiful outfit: @thisisthegreat_ 💘
baileyvantassel
baileyvantassel
•
Follow

Virginia Woolf talked about having a room of her own (for writing of course).

But I too believe that every woman should have a room of her very own – a space for her dream to be worked at.

I didn’t even know I was building mine the first time around, and ever since that first garden have fought to keep one. For me, the garden is where I can impose however much or little of myself.
It can be wild or kept, and often I have to dance with factors far outside myself just to keep it going.

I realize too that I live in a place in my own mind often, and then bits of real life replicate that dreamy space. Tiny present moments that create the feelings of contentment and peace will match up with the little world I’m striving to create externally.

And I have come to realize that our rooms – whether indoors or outside, or within a journal, are vessels. We enter with our changing moods, coloring the walls with our predispositions.

Each day, with these little ones by my side, I hope to showcase more and more of a world where we can build houses by our own hands and hearts – solidly on foundations of hope, perseverance, resilience, optimism, joy, commitment, authenticity, and boundary-less love.

The world begs for your youness, and that is it. For you to create out here what is also in there.

Beautiful outfit: @thisisthegreat_ 💘

2 weeks ago
View on Instagram |
4/4

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