We were told that some plants need to be planted earlier and some later, so we planted lettuce and peas first, in the earlier spring and we planted everything else about a month later.  The picture below clearly describes my two-year-olds interest in gardening this round.  For most of the time she was pretty distracted, except when she was pouring out packets of seeds or walking through rows we had just planted.. ha ha!  (Not so funny at the time)

We finally just decided to give them a portion of the garden and let them do whatever they wanted too while we tried to plant the other rows.  They went crazy on that portion and planted a whole bunch of stuff, side- by- side in completely uneven rows but I think it will be hilarious to see what happens to that part of the garden.  It kept them occupied and involved, so we were grateful for that while we tried to plant the rest.

When Nora got too distracted we just took her for a little walk and Jack finished up the rest of the garden.  I feel like age four was a really good age to do this.  He was really involved and did a really good job following instructions.  We had him put stakes in, make holes with the stakes (we just showed him how far apart they needed to be) and then we had him put the seeds in.  He really liked it and his attention span was long enough to really get some things done.

Overall it was fun to just have the kids down there working alongside us.  There were definitely moments of frustration (mostly with Nora:)) but I felt like it was a good learning opportunity and it helps give them a little bit of responsibility and ownership.  Jack is already getting excited and asking if the plants are starting to grow.  The lettuce is starting to bud and that made him excited.  Just fun that he has some ownership in the garden.