Congratulations on your new family members! What an exciting time and wonderful journey for your family. Don't beat yourself up for last year's garden; you were busy with more important things. When my son was small, I had two established flower beds in front of my house that I basically kept weeded (sometimes not so well), and an approximately 6x6" sized veggie bed, which was also situated next to the house. It was mostly tomatoes, onions, and melons. Near the house meant easier access for weeding, watering, and picking. I do wish I had done a child's bed, as others have done.

Carol

Kate, It's good to see you back here posting again. Congrats on going from 0 to 2. Your life must feel full of miracles and blessings.

Just do the best you can do in the time you have. Your children will remember the fun of planting, caring for the garden and harvesting it (and eating the edible things) more than they're remember whether or not it was weed-free or whatever.

Rototill or dig out the weeds and grass as well as you can, plant, mulch and move on. There is no requirement that any garden be weed-free and look perfect. Sadly the same conditions that grow beautiful garden plants will attract invasive grasses and weeds, and that's going to be a constant struggle. Thick mulch helps, but if y'all happen to have venomous snakes around, maybe go light on the mulch or only use straw or something that rattlesnakes and copperheads cannot blend in with quite so well.

You can do this. You're not a rookie. Just, please, please, please don't be too hard or yourself---I'd try to focus on the fun and the magic, and not let it bother me too much when weeds and grasses invade. I still get good enough yields and pretty enough flowers, even if crab grasses and lambs quarters keep popping up all around them. As a gardener, one of the hardest things to do is to let your garden and yourself be less than perfect, but I have found that less-than-perfect gardens still are happy gardens.

My garden gets invaded by weedy things every year in July and August when it is too snakey for me to spend much time weeding....too snakey and too dangerous. I still get an awesome harvest. In the winter, I clean it all up and start all over with a fresh slate---that's one of my favorite things about gardening. Whatever wasn't to our liking about the previous year can be changed this year.

Just enjoy the journey with the kids. It will be fun for them even if the garden is not up to your pre-children standards!

Dawn

Only tip I can think of is to teach the little ones that they can eat anything in this area, but everything else is off limits.

Congrats!

Are your raised beds in pretty good shape as far as weeds, etc.? If so, just add some compost and plants and go for it. If they need weeded and such, just work a few minutes a day as time permits. You can get a lot of weeds pulled in 20 minutes. Then, when one bed is clear of weeds, plant it. Then go to the next. You can do it!

Watering cans and a bucket of water they can refill for themselves is really fun for them. A section they plant and tend to all by themselves is also great. Although a few times I have"fixed" my little man's bed when he wasn't looking. Beans and peas are the best they germinate quickly and can be eaten raw. Have fun and know they will mess up more than a few things lol. Also first thing I taught my grandson is don't walk on the baby beds.

Oh, I feel you on this post! I have a 3yo and 5mo and gardening is a time and logistical and safety challenge every day! I converted one of my 4x4 raised beds to a sandbox a few weeks ago and that has helped a ton! Toddler is wildly entertained and baby is happy for minutes at a time parked in the stroller watching big brother.

Have you seen the pins of a Pack n Play with a crib sheet stretched across the top to keep bugs and sun off baby? A 3 yo might need a corral/play yard set up. Good luck to a all of you with little ones.

Thank you everyone!! I'm *particularly* inspired by that raised bed sand box!!! Really appreciate all of the tips.

I managed to weed one bed. It's a start! Thanks for your kind words - I really did need to hear it's ok for this to be messy and half-finished.

I'm glad you got a start! Converting the raised bed to a sandbox was really not too hard or time consuming. Only took me maybe two hours? Spread into little chunks of time of course. I dug the dirt out about 8 inches, put it in a wheelbarrow and dumped it, put down a few layers of cardboard (amazon boxes) and then used 7-8 bags of sand from Home Depot to fill it up. I've currently just got a few big flattened amazon boxes on top with a few bricks weighing it down to keep animals out, hoping to come up with a more elegant solution in the future but this will do for now! Sand toys are stashed in a big plastic flower pot and I've got a beach umbrella I'll break out for shade when the time comes.