Cultivating a Child’s Love of Gardening

Patty Milligan

My son Rory turned four this August, which means I have just four years of experience at gardening with a child. Yet, he seems to have a kind of love for gardening already. For instance, he stops at every planter we see to sniff the petunias, informing me that it is his “job” to smell them.

Looking back, I’ve been inadvertently cultivating his love of gardening since before he was born. While I was in labour, I went for a walk with the midwife down to the garden hoping to speed things along (the birth, not the garden!) We stood chatting and eating fresh peas through the contractions. The time of year was perfect; the garden was exploding with produce. I remember that moment as beautiful: the late afternoon light, the hint of fall, the delicious taste of peas, and the expectations of birth. When Rory actually arrived, we were at the Royal Alexandra Hospital with no vegetables in sight. Silly me, I had completely missed the opportunity to uphold the myth that babies are found in the cabbage patch.

By chance, one of the first things we did with Rory as a newborn was to walk down to the garden. Rory was snug in a sling. We laid him in the grass while we picked zucchini, peas, beans, and a few carrots.

How things have changed. He no longer coos gently at the edge of the garden. Over the last four summers we have had to find different ways to involve him, even if it has meant planting him on the edge of the garden with a shovel and dump truck. (What child isn’t captivated by the magical combination of shovel and pail, dirt and water?)

What hasn’t changed—and I know it’s like this for many parents and grandparents—is how much I want him to be there with me, to enjoy green and growing things, to bond with dirt. The late summer is especially great with a four-year-old, mainly because it’s the “eating” season. Unlike in spring and early summer, there is very little waiting in the fall. Instant gratification is what it is all about. Rory has learned how to crack open pea pods and to chomp on carrots that have been pulled from the dirt and brushed off on his pants. There is the element of discovery too—“whoa, how did those potatoes get there? I’m going to go get my dumptruck…”

Whatever shape his connection to food and flowers, to gardens and growing things takes, I’m happy. Getting children into the garden has often been a necessity—a lack of childcare or a real need for extra hands has often meant that children are pulled into the garden at an early age. My seventy-something uncle learned to garden from his father and grandfather. He says he looked forward to it simply because it was easier than other chores such as chopping wood or milking the cow.

Whether we garden in a container or on a farm, I reckon that our best bet is to share our time, our stories, and our joy in the garden with the children we love. If we are our best gardener-selves and we make the right conditions available, then our children and grandchildren will slowly and surely bloom into their own best gardener-selves.

 

(Originally published in Gardener's Gate, November/December 2009.)