Monday, March 5, 2007
Want a well grounded life? Want a legacy that cures the soul and the planet? Plant a garden and teach someone else how to do the same.
Can you plant a seed and make it grow? I work with teens who can't. Stunned? So was I. If you grew up in the Midwest, even if you didn't have a garden, you knew how to buy seeds and stick them in the ground. For my family, 50 percent of what was on our plate every night came directly out of our garden. I’m sure that organic childhood has a lot to do with why I’m so healthy today.
By teaching someone how to grow stuff, you teach patience, science, nutrition, diligence, more patience, cooking and maybe how to preserve the overabundance that happens. You also get a lot of other good benefits ... like exercise, organic food, lower grocery bills, free flower arrangements and lots and LOTS of new friends.
We had a saying in our garden club back in Michigan, "those without zucchinis are those without friends." The gardeners reading this will get that joke. One zucchini plant produces more zucchinis than any family can eat and when the season starts, you start giving them away and away and away. In that moment of exchanging veggies or flowers, conversations happen and friends are made. Once while gardening in my front yard in Minneapolis, an older neighbor came across the street and said, "I don't know who you are, but you have a garden, so you must be ok."
If that's the message that gardens and gardeners send, we need more of both.
Today, the garden at the shelter is providing a place for conversation, learning, eating, sharing … Some of the girls are only there for a month, others for years. I teach what I can to whomever is near. Little lessons, that hopefully will leave them well grounded.
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.