I have been gardening with kids in one form or another for over 20 years now. It is something that I have long been passionate about and been fortunate to work in a variety of different settings at. But as I contemplated leaving one of the schools I work with last fall, I slowly realized how much I truly love gardening with kids and how much my efforts to bring the garden to the students brings them an amazing sense of joy.
As the students came to talk with me week after week during their recess asking about what was happening in the garden and could they help, and when they were going to come out to the garden again, I realized just how much they enjoy the garden. But it took a teacher to point out the joy in the students. She joined her class in the garden for the first time – her students had worked with me before, but somehow, she had never managed to come with them. As the students worked, smiling, laughing, and having fun as they carefully harvested their assigned vegetable, she said to me “They are having so much fun, I never imagined that it would bring them so much joy! They are genuinely enjoying themselves”. Her words were so accurate and true, the garden brings an unbridled sense of joy to the students.
Once it was obvious, I witnessed this joy again and again throughout the fall. It was in the student who bought a tomato at our school Farmers Market and ran around the playground eating it and showing it off to their friends. It was in the students who tugged and tugged to finally pull out the largest carrot I have ever seen (a good 4” across and 8” long). It was in the tears of the boy who just wanted to be able to take home a pumpkin for himself. It was in the two boys who again and again snuck into the garden to eat as many raspberries as they could before their teacher found them. It was in the students who had planted onion starts in the spring and kept checking on them until finally they harvested them. It is in the preschool boy who turned to his mom and said “Mom, I like lettuce” as he tasted a fresh leaf. Every single one of these students experienced joy – joy in the simple pleasure of being surrounded by plants, joy at what they were able to grow, joy with how delicious it tasted, pure and simple joy.
To work in the garden, to feel the soil between your fingers, to witness the transformation of a plant from seed to food, to taste the sun warmed sweet tartness of a fresh cherry tomato popped into your mouth – it brings joy to many a gardener. But for a child who has never experienced any of this before, the joy is pure and unadulterated. And it is this joy that hopefully encourages them to become gardeners on their own at some point and to seek out healthy fruits and vegetables to eat. The joy of gardening always keeps me coming back season after season, but it is the joy of the students that truly warms my heart and keeps me going.
