City Kids In The Garden

At first the kids just stood there looking shy and uninterested. Okay, so that's a tomato plant. Big deal. Then I showed them how to tell which ones were ready to be picked, and the ice was broken. "There's another one over there!" "Are these ripe?" "That one just fell on the ground. Can we still eat it?" Most of them had never picked a tomato or eaten one sun-ripened on the vine. We picked Romas, Principe Borghese, and Yellow Pear tomatoes--a great big bowl of them to go with lunch.

These kids were eighth-graders visiting the Greene Avenue Community Garden in Brooklyn, NY. They came from an organization called Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, which one of our garden members works with. With SEO, the kids had spent several weeks visiting botanical gardens, planting seeds, and learning about some of the political issues facing community gardens in New York City.

The city's approach to community gardens changes yearly. Last year, we marched to protest the proposed sale of community gardens for "development". So far, so good: the garden is thriving. But it is never certain that it will be there next year, even though our particular garden has been in existence for over eighteen years. A sad but interesting fact is that there are thousands of derelict buildings in the city that could be torn down or renovated rather than razing garden land. I look at the glorious white birch tree that is at the center of our garden, and try not to imagine it being chopped down to make space for another parking lot.

We sat under that birch tree for lunch. I brought out Wild Cherry & Mint Iced Tea, Red Clover Bread with Daylily Cheese Spread, and of course, Tomato Salad. In between bites, the kids pressed leaves and flowers into notebooks, and I spelled out the Latin names for the plants. I also tried to make a connection for them between what they were eating and what was growing all around them. "This flower is those bits of orange in the cheese spread. You see that tree over there? That's where the cherries for the iced tea came from. Here, smell this: apple mint. And this one: spearmint."

One of the other gardeners offered to let the girls in the group have the glorious dahlias that were blooming alongside his plot. They were thrilled, but the one boy felt left out. He asked me if he could pick one of the roses, and then another, and another. He then turned around and gave all the roses to the three mentor-teachers. Smiles all around.

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