Children in the Garden
We move to a house for a bigger garden
“for the CHILDREN” and imagine them
forever outside and yet it is not quite like
that.
We picture each child with his own row of radishes and calendula, competitive sunflowers and perhaps some French beans. But there is so much disappointment in the garden: rabbits and pigeons, drought and frost will destroy all, and junior interest will wane. Failure may be instructive but it can also be dispiriting. Even grownups, buoyed up by the gardening sections of the papers’ admonishments and countless how-to-do books, can find the vicissitudes of the plant world more than a little trying so it is not at all surprising that children can be persuaded that it is just too difficult.
This not to say that they won’t use the garden; ours is full of small projects, shops and cafes in miniature, grand prix race tracks, assault courses for mice (this last project a risky one for, like Roman gladiatorial combat, once the show is over the participant often finds himself at liberty). This year has seen the excavation of a deep, child-hiding, hole with its pithead detritus at the side of the onion bed. One might find this annoying, it does bring an unwelcome note of industrialization into the kitchen garden but on the plus side it means that Michael and I are in the garden together, working side by side. Perhaps this is a perfectly good way to get accustomed to the pleasure of the garden? I can weed, or lift the onions while his mining operations continue to scuffle underground only yards away. Some might find this a visual intrusion. It is definitely not pretty but perhaps children are a message not to be TOO precious about ones garden. It is quite easy for the garden to be a massive telling-off zone and while nobody wants to see the Frisbee gliding towards the adored zinnias or the cricket ball falling greenhouse-wards it needn’t be too blighted with restricted access areas.
Last year we grew the largest sunflowers ever. My soil is unbeatable, rich dark and deep loam with good clay beneath. The stems were really trunks three or four inches in diameter and up to ten feet tall with heavy elephant’s ear leaves and heads like platters laden for a feast. They were Michael’s sunflowers. He sowed the seeds in the greenhouse, saw them germinate, helped, a little, with their planting out and then watched their growth possessively. Does that make them Michael’s plants as much as if he had tended entirely himself? I think that it does and when he really is old enough to make them work on his own it will seem an undaunting project. I have stuck with this approach with all our four children and while none are accomplished gardeners I hope they will feel confident of their gardening abilities when the time comes.
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