Children in the Garden

As summer begins to wind down, and the start of a new school year is on the horizon, I thought now was a good time to reflect on this summer. For me, it has been a summer of firsts. It’s the first summer in our new (to us) home in Jeffersonville, the first summer writing this column and, perhaps most importantly, the first summer working as gardener at one of the area summer camps.

It’s been a summer of planting, weeding, watering and mulching, similar in these ways to other summers, but there the similarities end. The people at the camp are what made this summer special—especially my volunteer garden crew, the smallest people at camp.

So many times in the garden at home we may not allow these little people to help, fearing they will do something wrong, break something or just slow us down. But that’s no excuse for denying them the sense of accomplishment and pride in a real job well done. And I can’t help but believe they will nurture the garden they helped to create. Over time, working in the garden may help them to develop a love of plants and empathy for other living things.

There are lots of jobs in the garden that small people can do. In the vegetable garden they can help plant large seeds. So what if the row isn’t perfectly straight? What a thrill for them when their plants sprout, and later they can eat their reward! At camp, I was impressed with how capable, strong and smart my ‘crew’ was. They range in age from two and a half to about four or five, yet they helped water: dragging hoses, turning faucets on and off and taking turns holding the hose, saving me a lot of steps. They also helped plant: digging holes and carefully filling in soil around the new plants. Each day they’d find me around camp, and while we worked we’d talk about roots and flowers, and they’d tell me about their holidays and about keeping kosher. They showed me an internal discipline that surprised me in ones so young. All in all, I don’t know who learned more—them or me. One thing’s for sure: I can’t wait until next summer!