I posted about the below photo on Instagram the other day, but character limits (and peoples’ social media attention spans) prevented me from delving too far into the topic. This is our neighbors’ sweet son, and boy does this kid have an affinity for gardening! Read on to see what our neighbor has to say about their son’s experience growing up with a garden in an urban setting.
We are so lucky that Amy and Kristian share their garden with us. Before he could even walk or crawl or sit, he was out there learning about our natural world through gardening. His early exposure to and the teaching he receives in the garden has already begun shaping who he is becoming. He is an interested, kind lover of nature at the ripe age of a year and a half.
His second or third word was “garden”, so that tells you all you need to know about how formative this experience is for him. He already doesn’t let us throw out produce waste; the second we have an empty orange peel in our house, he chants “garden!” and wants to bring it out to the compost.
Because he spends so much time learning how to garden, he is growing up with an understanding about food, nature, self-sufficiency, and community living. He is learning respect for flowers and plants, and how to treat them gently. He learns not to pick things or tear them. He waves at foliage and plant life around town because he is learning that plants are to be respected.
This experience is something beyond what can be summed up in an Instagram caption. The power of gardening for children is immense. He is who he is because he is allowed to get dirty, plant some stuff, help it grow, and then eat the results. Seeing him in the garden with Amy and Kristian gives me hope for the future.
When I was born, my parents were living in an old 1830s farmhouse in Lunenburg, MA, a rural town about 50 miles northwest of Boston and just shy of the New Hampshire border. The home was situated on 40 acres of land, with farm land, woods, and huge lawns on all sides. We moved from that home when I was around 12, and it wasn’t until I was much older and living in cities that I truly recognized and appreciated how fortunate I was to grow up surrounded by nature. As I watched families strolling their kids around in New York City, making their way to playgrounds and local parks, I would ponder what it must be like growing up surrounded by concrete. I’d think of some of the fondest memories of my childhood — climbing apple trees, picking fresh blackberries off the bush, going to the nursery with my parents, riding on tractors, planting seeds in the garden, munching on snap peas from the vine, going for long walks in the woods — and realize that these kids would likely have none of those experiences.
That’s not to poo-poo city living. Heck, I’ve bounced from Boston to San Francisco to New York, and now to Los Angeles. At this time in my life, city living is where it’s at for us career-wise. And as far as cities go, Santa Monica is pretty wonderful. It’s a bit slower than Los Angeles, and the fact that we’re 1 mile from the beach certainly helps make city living more palatable. But since we finally have outdoor space, one of the first things we did upon moving in was start a raised vegetable bed. I’d been yearning for years and years at that point to have a garden, knowing how much joy it brought me when I was younger. It was an aching longing to return to something I once loved but had to put on the back burner for a long time. I’d applied for a community garden plot in Brooklyn to no avail. Now, we had space and I was determined to make the most of it.
For better or worse, things that happen during your formative years have a way of sticking with you throughout your life. In my case, I count my lucky blessings that early exposure to the natural world was such a massive part of my upbringing. Our maple trees were tapped by local farmers for maple syrup. My parents taught me about composting, and how to plant seeds in the ground. Whether or not I was any help, they included me in everything. And I was a little sponge, soaking it all up. And like a seed waiting patiently through the winter to emerge in spring, my early love of gardening remained dormant for years until it had just the right environment to germinate. And that environment is this little rental bungalow in Santa Monica, CA.
Our neighbors’ son has been around for the transformation of our space, and it’s been so wonderful to see his interest in plants start to blossom. As you can see in the quote above, he gets legitimately excited to put things in the compost (same, bud, same!), waves at plants, and chants “garden, garden!” on the regular. Aside from being downright adorable, it warms my heart to know that despite living in a city, he’s getting daily exposure to the natural world, learning about the seasons of a garden, planting seeds and watching the stages of growth, and getting his hands dirty in the soil. That’s the kind of stuff that sticks in the subconscious and can stay with someone for a lifetime. And with the state of our world today, getting the next generation excited about nature and plants and the environment is more important than ever before.
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