Well, it's all in the gardening

To the editor:

Recently, I transplanted the flowers and seedlings my friend Laura thinned from her lush suburban garden.

Actually, I didn’t. Two children from my building (who may never have dug a hole in their lives) did. They were riding their bikes in our courtyard with their mom looking on from a patio chair. I started to wheel the cart filled with gardening stuff — two watering cans, my gardening tote bag, and the plants — past them toward our garden on the side of the building. 

Then, on a whim, I turned the cart back around and asked them if they’d like to help. 

The younger, Jacob (I’ve changed the names) said yes right away. His sister Rachel, perhaps not wanting to be left in the courtyard to bike alone, followed her brother shortly. (Also because she wanted to boss her little brother around.)

I handed each of them a pair of gardening gloves, a trowel, and my old-lady kneeling pad. So, they got some site-selection instruction: Is there enough room for the plant to spread out? Will it get enough sun here? Some hole-digging coaching, like don’t toss the dirt you just removed from the hole so far away you can’t fill the hole up again. 

Some watering can instruction: Don’t fill it so much you can’t carry it. Some gardening tool tips, that slugs devour the marigolds (so we’re going to move them to a place the slugs won’t find them). That the knee pad is for your knees. That bees will be more interested in the blooms on the bee balm than in stinging any humans that might be nearby. That worm poop is good for the soil, that the plants might be droopy for a few days after transplanting.

That putting the flowers in the ground is fun, but pulling up the weeds, not so much — but they’re both called gardening.

I so enjoyed helping them plant living things in the earth. I loved their curiosity and eagerness. I loved watching them throw themselves into the activity, unaware of how happy it made me and their beaming mom.

When all the equipment was cleaned up and put away, they hopped back on their bikes and resumed their riding. Jacob stopped short, planted his feet on the ground, and asked, “Can we plant an apricot tree tomorrow?”

Kathleen Burke