Worried about food prices? Looking for something to do with the grandkids this summer that doesn’t involved spending $50 a whack for tickets and treats?
Plant a garden.
The most priceless gift we have to share with grandchildren is our time. In a garden, there is much we can teach them, day by day.
By learning and applying the basic skills of gardening, children reap a very practical reward: healthy food for the family’s dinner table.
I wish I could claim this idea as my own, but it actually came up in a wide-ranging conversation about gardening with Sharon Coleman, an agent for Snohomish County’s Washington State University extension office. “A garden is a great family activity because you do it together,” she said. Small hands are as adept at rooting out weeds as those of adults and the joy of harvest is pleasure shared.
Given the rapid rise of food prices, there is a significant move back to gardening in Snohomish County, Coleman said. After a recent column on victory gardens, the e-mails I received reflected that interest and more.
N.B. “Butch” Gardner of Arlington sent along his own detailed plan for converting unused farm land in Snohomish County into acres of “Victory Over Hunger Gardens.”
He envisioned these to be organized and supported by community organizations, churches and foundations, with seniors and unemployed folks providing the manpower to work the land.
Workers would share the produce and surplus would go to food banks. Community kitchens would be set up to process and preserve foods for use throughout the winter.
He asked that I e-mail his proposal to anyone I thought might help and I did. He’s interested in organizing a community meeting in his area. E-mail him at neremmers1969@msn.com.
But his idea can be successfully adapted on a smaller scale, neighborhood by neighborhood. The Bayside P-Patch in Everett is an excellent example of what a group of volunteers can achieve with a skilled gardener coordinating the work.
In King County, the Seattle P-Patch program has a long successful history of community gardening.
The Snohomish County WSU extension office is an excellent resource for people interested in gardening or buying produce direct from local farmers, Coleman said.
The office has free copies of the Puget Sound Fresh Farm Guide, farms where you can buy direct. Master gardeners are available to speak to interested groups. The office has several bulletins on home gardens that are also free.
And, Coleman said, they are also considering offering a training session for community garden coordinators.
Information on starting a community garden is available online from both the Seattle P-Patch program as well as American Community Gardens Association.
However, for many grandparents blessed to live near their children and grandchildren even a small garden or a few plants scattered in the flower beds is an opportunity to share a value lesson learned decades ago.
Most families in my neighborhood had large vegetable gardens. Weeding was usually assigned to the younger kids, those who weren’t old enough to work in the strawberry fields just outside of town.
Being a creative child, I often suggested trading weeding chores for picking a big kettle of blackberries or gathering hazelnuts from bushes that grew wild in the woods near our home in rural Portland, Ore.
Some days that worked. Eventually I’d fill my kettle and my stomach with juicy berries before a slow walk home often delayed by the passing of a garter snake or interesting bug.
In the kitchen. I watched my mom and grandma make jam from those berries and spread the nuts out to dry on old window screens. They also canned vegetables and fruit to help us stretch a tight food budget in the winter months. Those were life lessons I did not forget through the years and drew on again as a young mother.
Since retiring, I’ve returned to my early roots. Homemade jam, apple butter, applesauce, salsa and chili sauce as well as canned pears and peaches fill my cupboards and freezer each fall.
These are the gifts of my labor that please my grandchildren the most.
“We love Gramma pears and strawberry jam best,” they say as the jars are stacked neatly on a pantry shelf.
Unlike many children today, they understand how food arrives on their dinner table, and they’re learning to appreciate the hard work and skill it takes to produce that food.
From now into fall, they will make weekly visits with their mother to a farm in Carnation where they will buy, and sometimes harvest themselves, berries and vegetables. They have their own “garden” in the backyard where they’ve planted carrots and tomatoes.
Since last summer, the 6-year-old twins have planted seeds from the apples and watermelons they eat in their mother’s flower beds. So far, no signs of tiny trees among lush greenery, but they keep watch just in case.
There is much to learn in a garden and much to gain by being a gardener who passes that knowledge along.
“I grew it myself,” are empowering words, especially when the speaker is a child.
Linda Bryant Smith writes about growing older, surviving and finding a little gold in the golden years.You can reach her at ljbryantsmith@yahoo.com.
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