Do Good & Eat Well with Edible Landscapes
We’ve finally made it to planting season here in the great north. Both Little Miss Three and Miss Kindergarten love getting involved with the garden, partly because they find a squirmy, wormy pet with every shovelful of earth and partly because they remember fondly the backyard treats they discovered last year.
The picture above is from last August, when our Kiwi-Gold Raspberries (an exceptionally sweet variety) were ripening daily. They were such a delight that this spring we’ve added two new raspberry bushes to the front yard.
Yes, the front yard.
We’ve found that raspberries, strawberries, and rhubarb are the most prolific and reliable perennial harvests available, and we’ve embraced them for their landscaping potential. The rhubarb is sneaking into the kitchen daily now!
As a family, we’ve actually become a little snobby in our gardening tendencies: if we can’t eat it eventually, why give it space in our yard?
I realize we’re lucky to have the luxury of space, plenty of which gets the full sun most edible plants require, but anyone can beautify their home, apartment, or yard with an edible landscape. If you haven’t already jumped on the Victory Garden bandwagon, check out Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces. This book offers lots of tips, tools, and pictures for the beginning gardener who wants a compact harvest close to home.
If the thought of homegrown tomato isn’t enough to sell you on the idea, consider the learning opportunity for the young ones in your life.
Gardening so incredible tactile, it perfectly appeals to kids. Both of my girls have helped plant our garden since they were old enough to hold a plastic shovel, and they have always loved this invitation to play in the dirt, to lay out the curious looking seeds, and then splash them with water.
Even at one and a half, my youngest took great pride in gently cradling a young plant and setting it, “like a baby” I would tell her, into its soil-filled nest. Watching those chubby little hands “tuck the baby in” with dirt and give it a drink of water was almost as endearing as watching her and her sister steal cherry tomatoes from the vine at first blush.
We do it not just for the food, or the delightful satisfaction of watching our work turn into reward, but the fun of it.
I’d like to say we do it for the same reason so many schools have started their own gardens: to teach kids what healthy food looks like and where it comes from. That wouldn’t be honest, though.
Growing up on a farm, I was never confused by how food gets to grocery stores. My own children, now helping me install their 5th and third gardens (respectively) both point to watermelons and tomaoes in the produce isle each January and say, “I bet those don’t taste very good; it’s not their time.”
Certainly, you’ve all been persuaded long before I weighed in on this subject. Gardening is more a question of space and time, so carve out a little of each and give your kids the gift of good food, grown close at hand, with their own hard work to thank for it!
Tags: Big Ideas, Healing the Earth
