Why you should start a garden

We’ve started a victory garden at our house. Been here for six years and we’re finally getting around to it. I say we because we’re a mighty crew of three. Two of us are under 38 inches tall, and they come to the jobsite in full regalia: shovels, sun hats, recycled plastic gloves, and “We need a snack first” attitudes. 

We jump straight into yard work once they’re out of the car and home from school. We spend a full hour digging a sizable U-shaped keyhole trench opposite the chicken coop. (We didn’t get the chickens) That’s one secret with kids: set up an activity, give them a job, and watch the time pass by.

We’re working in the field this afternoon. I’m teaching them how to turn the soil and lay out cardboard flooring. The earth is compacted and heavy on clay. We chop and whack and mix and in just a few minutes I’m sweating through my dumb oversized sun hat from Home Depot. 

The kids work their hands and tiny fingers into the compost. My aunt told me “It’s healthy to get their hands in the dirt. Helps their balance and coordination.”

 I don’t understand the biology but encourage them anyway. 

The kids swap tools every few minutes and get a feel for each one. Levi chops dirt with the hoe and drops it for a shovel, digging up the dirt. Emma rakes weeds and throws them back in the hole.  Levi sees what Emma is doing and starts to shriek. 

I let them work it out and grab the big dog – shoveling and swinging pounds of dirt over their heads. I move sideways and step on the mini rake like I’m in a cartoon and the metal end strikes me right by the babymaker. Say the prayer, that was a close one. 

It’s a slow moving process but we quickly make progress.

It feels incredible to work with my hands. I’m in my head most of the time - concepting, thinking, planning, writing, editing, and second-guessing. Gardening reverses all the dumb brain work I do and releases the tension valve – like that magic air deflate button on Reebok pumps from our childhood. 

The whole process from soil to seed to planting is nostalgic. After college I studied permaculture and desert mudbuilding in Israel. I spent 6 months on a kibbutz surrounded by the Arava mountains. We made benches from plastic detergent bottles and mud. Built a strawbale dome in a week. We designed and constructed a mudshower. 

But growing sweet potatoes and onions in 110 degree arid conditions was alchemical. The entire concept of growing food out here was and is ridiculous, and nothing short of amazing. All the methods I learned 19 years ago light up in my brain. Back then we used sheep wool as mulch. Guess I need to find a sheep now. 

We’re out here digging and we don’t want to stop. I love having these tiny interns here to help – and I know they’re absorbing the message. Manual labor is necessary. Gardening is magic. Self-sufficiency will serve you one day. Growing your own food is the real resistance. Turn off the TV. Go outside.

I know it’s sinking in when Levi spots a hummingbird that I hadn’t bothered to notice. It happens when Emma plays outside and tells me she sees the moon in daylight. 

The better their eyes get, the more they see, and see what’s important. They know nothing of electoral politics or proxy wars or a shrinking middle class. They’re not on twitter and haven’t watched a full-length movie and don’t know Paw Patrol.

They know how to make granola bars and build cities from Lego. They know that bees eat nectar and help flowers grow. They taught themselves to climb rocks and do deadhangs and arrange gardening rocks.

Of course this idyllic view won’t last forever. But I’m trying to nurture it as much as I can. To water their interests in anything analog and help them branch off to explore on their own. 

The digital revolution that promised us connection and convenience? Turns out it makes us feel isolated and lazy. And they’ll spare no one, least of all our kids who won’t don’t have the memory of a life pre-Internet. 

I teach them how to grow tomatoes and squash so that they have something to fall back on when they’re in their teens. When the apps and computer engineers come to hijack their attention and destroy their soil of simplicity.

On a morning walk today (we made lunches and finished breakfast by 7:45 which deserves a medal) our son asked me with total sincerity, “Aba, is the sun always here?” 

There’s a psychedelic curiosity they possess that I’m jealous of. A fine eye toward the beautiful and mundane. You need that to see the hummingbird before she flies away.

4 things right now

Go: Outside

Go: Outside

Go: Outside

Go: Outside