Garden Thoughts

My neighbor was working in his large garden, first tilling, and then planting onion plants and sets. As he stood up to visit, he commented that he just wasn’t as young as he used to be. I knew he gave much of his produce to his children, so my reply was “you need to get the kids to help you some”. He said, well, the garden was really for the grandkids, but they and his adult children didn’t want to learn how to garden themselves.

A week a so earlier, at the dentist, the dental hygienist was making the usual comment about the nice weather, just starting to feel spring like. I replied that I was ready to start gardening so we could enjoy that early lettuce. Immediately, I had captured her attention and she peppered me with garden questions the rest of the appointment. She and her husband had purchased their first house, and wanted to start their first adventure in vegetable gardening. She asked if I canned, when I said yes, she was envious, saying that her mother never canned and she hoped I was teaching gardening and canning to the next generation.

It is interesting to see that some younger people are starting to see the connection between the food they eat and how it gets to their table, and that they could provide some of this food for themselves. Mom and Dad would have simply called it their patriotic duty to provide some of their family food from their large garden, as well as necessary to the family budget – one that didn’t depend on credit cards and “home equity lines of credit” – something that they would have considered the last resort – a shameful 2nd mortgage.