Gardens Aren’t Just for Kids

A garden for every school and preschool—of course! As I said before, we should consider a garden essential for every school and preschool, with container gardens or visits to nearby gardens as a temporary stop-gap measure to give every child time outside growing food. Everyone in the community can help, and these gardens should be integrated into the entire school and the whole community. We are making good progress in making this vision a reality, but as many schools remain without this essential feature, there is much we can all do—8 Ways You Can Help Get Kids into School Gardens!

But that’s not enough. If we are serious about providing the best for our children—the best food, the best knowledge of it, and the best future—we need to do more. Children need to see gardens throughout the community, their role models growing food, and people caring about their food and the land and people that provide it. They need to see people appreciating nature in the garden and protecting it as we grow our food. They need to see that gardens aren’t just for kids!

A garden at home for every kid—or a community garden nearby. A garden at home—even a few container tomatoes and carrots or a family plot at a nearby community garden—can give children a place to show their parents what they have learned in their school garden and a sense that this is a family endeavor and a life-long skill to develop.

This is especially important for schools and preschools not in session for much of the summer growing season. The model of school kids bringing home vegetable starts for the home garden or caring for a few container veggies from school during the summer break can make a solid connection between home and school for these children. Grandparents lucky enough to live nearby can help busy parents on the home front.

What if we had gardens throughout the community? What if kids saw food gardens wherever they went in their hometown or neighborhood—places for people to grow, to meet, to relax, to learn. Not just ornamentals, but real food crops as well. What if, in addition to school and backyard gardens, we had gardens at:

• Libraries
• Hospitals
• Senior Centers
• Museums
• Churches
• Granges
• Nature Centers
• Restaurants & Hotels
• Government Offices

Getting Serious about our children’s future. Gardens are fun and rewarding on many levels, but they can also be seen as a responsibility—part of our responsibility to make this world and our children’s future better. We could use a public attitude similar to that of the wartime Victory Gardens. One could argue that we currently face serious threats from obesity, climate change, political unrest, and the economy that would justify a similar approach.

With such a community attitude, our public gardens would have deeper ranks of leaders, champions, and supporters, and be more sustainable over time. Local policies would eliminate any unnecessary obstacles to community or backyard gardens, and make marketing of excess produce as easy as possible. The oft-mentioned idea of requiring space for community gardens in low-income housing developments would become a reality.

Neighbors would be willing to care for the gardens of those who are travelling (one of the more common reasons I hear for not gardening). Procrastinators waiting until they fully understand how to grow food would see this as an elusive goal; they would dig in with the help of fellow gardeners and local garden support groups. Not having a garden would be the exception, rather than the rule.

The overall obstacle, as I see it, is not a lack of time, money, growing season, water, space, or know-how—although these can be real impediments that require creative solutions. The biggest underlying obstacle, in my opinion, is in not making this a priority—for schools, for preschools, for one’s own family, and for the community as a whole. Hopefully as we see the amazing benefits of school and preschool gardens for our kids, we will realize that all of us need to be gardening in some way—for ourselves, our kids, and their future.