Mama Bean is KinderGARDENing (11)

I took a short bike ride to the big garden tonight. The Weed Offensive is gaining strength, I feel weak against it. Especially with a sore bum from bike riding...

On the other hand, I ate the first sun-warmed raspberry from our yard today. (Shh, don't tell Papa Bean...)

There are things about gardening that are very big picture - crop rotation, succession planting, soil amending. All this long term stuff, and big project stuff, and thinky thinky stuff. But most of the tasks of gardening are pretty focused - look at this plant, look at this flower or leaf or root, look here. When I sit myself into the Teachable Moments of Gardening with Bean, that's the word I hear myself using a lot. "Here buddy put the water here no not there, over here. Look buddy, look here at this flower, this will be a cucumber. And look here this is going in our salad tonight. And over here is a weed, you can pull that out, no no not that. That is was a carrot..."

I get overwhelmed by the big stuff, because I want to do it all now. I want all the weeds gone now. I want the soil perfect and loamy and amended now. I want my crops perfectly successioned and rotated rightthisveryminute. And nothing about gardening happens now.

But pulling a weed. Smelling a flower. Picking a bean. That can happen now. And I think that kind of immediacy is something that can grab kids' attention. And keep it. For an instant. And an instant is all I need.

This week's KinderGARDEN assignment was getting up close and personal, getting into the now, and capturing the small. It was nice to ignore the weeds big picture (cuz it is srsly dismal, y'all) and let myself do what I want to do anyway, and just focus on the Good.

Like hundreds of baby tomatoes all fuzzy and shiny good...

And white orange red lilies blooming good...

And creamy smooth cabbage leaves just starting to makes heads good...

And dirt splattered lettuce because Bean helped me water good...

And shocking Christmas in my garden chard good...

And confidence building crazy productive too bad I don't like how they taste radishes comingoutmyears good...

And pumpkin blossom buds lifting puckered lips to the waning sunset good...

And potato flowers unfurled with pale purple serenity good...

And delectable eyelashes on kissable cheeks good...

And barrette-wearing bubble-blowing fingers-and-toes-discovering good...

Thanks, Kim, for the invitation to see the Good this week. Please stop by the other KinderGARDENers to see what they saw :) Also, I missed the link up last week, but here's my post anyway!