I make an effort to get my daughter, a toddler, involved in our garden. She has helped plant seeds, cultivate soil, pull weeds, and harvest the produce. She knows about our compost pile. She's familiar with the animals that live in the garden: lizards, toads, worms, beetles, bees, butterflies, and moths. She's learning how the weather can affect the garden - the importance of sunlight and rain. It's a great outdoor activity for her, and I know she's getting a very basic introduction to biology and science, as well as developing wonder and respect for the world around her.
But beyond all the practical benefits, there's something much more deeply satisfying about gardening with my daughter; it's the connection to my own family experience and history, even the ancient human tradition of life bound up with the earth and its rhythms.
From early childhood I remember having a vegetable garden in our suburban backyard. It was my mom's project, mostly, in a sunny 12' × 12' corner of the yard, but I remember helping plant seeds and playing among the rows of tomatoes - always tomatoes - carrots, radishes, peppers, and corn.
My grandfather, too - my mom's father - had a garden in his backyard, though that was in later years after he had sold his farm. They lived in a small, rural southern Illinois town, and though he never lived on the land he owned a farm nearby. When my mom was growing up he had a large garden patch there, and even in my childhood he still kept a herd of Angus and Hereford cattle. I remember looking over the fence with him, and agreeing that the little black ones were 'mine,' and he could have the big red ones. Even after he was too old to manage his own farm, he still loved to go out to u-picks. A child of the depression, he gloried in the bounty of strawberries and peaches that he could harvest with his own hands.
In fact, there's still a farm on that side of the family. My mother's cousin still lives on the farm where she was born and raised, and while she's out of the farming business herself the land is still active; she leases it to local farmers who pasture cattle and grow hay.
Looking back down the family tree, plenty of ancestors on both sides were farmers, or involved in farming at some point in their lives.
I've had other gardening influences as well. I'll never forget my grade school science teacher, Mr. Peak, who had each class save half-pint milk cartons from cafeteria lunch. We washed them out, filled them with soil, planted tomato seeds, and lined them up in the south-facing classroom window to absorb the sun's energy. He started a garden in the school's courtyard, and I remember volunteering with a couple of friends on sweltering afternoons after school, feeling lost in a jungle of towering tomato plants, and mulching down the weeds with sweet-smelling grass clippings. I don't know if any of the produce ever made it into the school's kitchen, but in 1980 this was long before Alice Waters' Edible Schoolyard.
I never really thought about any of this until well into my adult life. Gardening and growing one's own food seemed a commonplace, a trivial hobby that didn't merit much thought. But gradually it crept back into my consciousness. During graduate school, my partner (later husband) and I moved to a 100 year-old farmhouse on a defunct family farm. I started a garden. I started reading about gardening. I talked to my mother; we shared tips and techniques.
A pivotal moment, though I didn't fully comprehend it at the time, came after a trying and difficult Ph.D. exam. At our follow-up meeting, my dissertation director told me, "I know you want to take the summer off and work in your garden, but you've got to get right to work writing a prospectus." My emotional, if not conscious, reaction was 'If I can't do the things I love - like gardening - then maybe a Ph.D. isn't right for me.' Eight months later I left the program; I had learned that I didn't love the work enough to finish it.
Now I can look back and see the threads of gardening winding their way through my life, like tendrils of a deep-rooted, tenacious vine. It's been there always, in the midst of other things, sometimes forgotten but persistent, and now I'm trying to tend it and help it thrive. I know it will be a long time before my daughter can appreciate her own relationship to gardening, which I'm sure will grow in its own unique way. But our days in the backyard will give her a start.
What are your gardening roots?
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