Gardening forum? I'm IN!!! Question for the BTDT moms

[ProfessorChaos]

OMG, I just saw this forum! I'm a gardening fanatic. Here's my question: I'm due April 17th, which is about 4 weeks from the best time to transplant seedlings into the garden. Normally we'd be starting seeds in our grow light set-up around 4/1, but my question is whether this is crazy to plan on with the LO due. I won't be working full time over the summer, but I've never had a baby before, so I don't know how reasonable it is to plan on our usual scale garden (five raised beds veggie beds, each about 4'x8', plus an herb garden and other flower/fruit beds).

Assuming a healthy baby, what can we expect to do in the garden this year?

[mlal78]

Honestly, it really depends on the baby. I would plan to do it. The first twoish months they aren't going to be doing much more than sleeping anyway, so you should have a fair amount of time.

I have brought a playpen outside in the shade with a bug cover over top and left them there to sleep while I did a bit of gardening. Just make sure dh is on board to help out in case you don't have the time to do it all.

I did find I had less time when they were a little older (9 months+), so maybe plan to not do as much next summer.

[ProfessorChaos]

mlal78 - Thanks! DH is very on board. He keeps telling me we're going to have tons of time to hike and garden and whatever. He has more baby experience than I do, so I can't really argue, but I'm seriously skeptical!

[mitorachel]

I am also due in April with my 3rd spring baby. I've never done indoor seedlings the year the kids are born because I don't want to figure out what happens to them while I'm in the hospital. I also get really tired days in the 3rd tri., so I try to keep life simple then. The in the ground gardening has worked just fine with a newborn and I don't have a husband who cares at all about it (except the eating part). My gardens sound similar in size and make-up to yours. My tricky things this year are figuring out if a. my rather strong aversion to greens will go away post birth and b. figuring out if it is worth planting anything in the way of stuff to be canned.

[olenka]

ProfessorChaos, congrats on the baby. I was where you were, a year ago. My SO and I scaled back our garden considerably last year. I think it was the first year I didn't do any indoor seed starting. He ended up doing the bulk of the planting and maintenance because I was just too tired and otherwise occupied. We ended up having a decent garden in the end, it just didn't have as much of my involvement. This year, though, it's on!

[CaptainLeela]

I'm not a BTDT mom (due with my first at the beginning of May), but thought I'd jump in. We just moved in to a new house that has a large yard that is in need of a little TLC. The previous owner didn't cut anything back last fall so I've got a lot of dead stuff that needs to be cleaned up. My plan is to get the dead stuff cleaned up in the next month or so while I'm still relatively mobile and then just playing it by ear. There is a ton of stuff I want to do in the yard but I'm not making any plans right now. I'll be happy if I can just do general upkeep and weed control this year. I'm hoping I'll be able to wear her while I do some gardening, although I'm not sure how well that will work since it involves so much bending over. I may just have to plan on doing some shorter gardening sessions while she's with DH/my mom. I also saw on Pinterest that a fitted sheet works well as a bug/sun cover over a pack n play, so I may give that a shot too.

Good luck and congrats on the new LO.

[ardent]

I had a baby last April and my garden straight up suffered. I hope to do better this year. Plants were just super low on the priority list when it came down to it, and I love to garden.