This is what homesteading with children looks like. Fox, now a toddler, picked these precious San Marzano tomatoes, which he’s been doing periodically all summer. And, yes, it drives me I.N.S.A.N.E.
But the alternative is to keep the kids out of the garden or, worse, stop gardening altogether out of frustration. And then everyone loses. Let me tell you why.
Continuing to homestead on our urban plot teaches our whole family important stuff. Fox will eventually learn how to tell when our crops are ripe. He’ll assume everyone has tomatoes in his backyard and all tomatoes taste as good as ours.
Juniper (7 yrs) and River (4 yrs) both know a ripe tomato when they see one. They know how to water our plants deeply vs spraying water all over the pathways. They can tell a tomato plant by the smell of their leaves. As they get older, they become better and better helpers.
What am I learning? Patience. Planning. Adaptability. Flexibility. Plant extras of the things you’re super excited to harvest and lean on your local farmers (markets, u-pick, they pick, etc) to supplement when things didn’t go well with your harvest.
This isn’t just about a batch of tomatoes, saving some money, supporting sustainable agriculture. This is a lifestyle for us. That means it’s woven into our daily life, and daily lives evolve over time. We’re currently in the toddler-picking-green-tomatoes-phase.
But next year he’ll know better. And maybe I’ll know a little bit more too. Like they say, “no garden is as great as next year’s garden.”
