Gardening and Grandchildren

Ronda: I love early summer mornings in my garden. I marvel at the beauty of God's creations, and wonder at the potential and miracle of a tiny seed. This summer I discovered the joy of sharing my garden with my grandchildren. When raising my own children, the garden was something I wanted, but for them, it was a place to learn to work. With my grandchildren, however, the garden has become a place to explore, experience, and learn. (Ah, the wisdom that comes with added years!) Exploring is much more fun than working.

This spring (when it finally dried up enough to plant), Eliza, Sami, and Ali helped me plant the pumpkin seeds. Each place a seed was planted was identified by a metal marker, on which each child wrote their name. At Sami's next visit, she eagerly ran outside to see if her seeds were growing. Soon the seeds started to sprout, and the girls were thrilled to see the bright green leaves of a young pumpkin plant pushing out of the dark soil.

This July, Maya and Ethen came from Malaysia to visit. I smiled as Maya said, "Let's go out and see what's growing in the garden." Maya was excited to see that we had planted a "rainbow of peppers": red, yellow, orange, green, and purple.
[Bob]The poor purple pepper plant is a paltry pepper producer!

Maya was even interested in helping me weed the garden, and even more so when I found a pair of gloves her size. She stayed with me about 15 minutes as I showed her the weeds to pull. I explained we pull out weeds because they make it harder for the good plants to grow. It was an obvious choice of good over evil. Pull out the bad weeds!

I told her about pulling weeds with my brother when I was a young girl--weeds taller than I was, and we pulled so hard that we fell down when the weed finally came loose.

Ethen loved just playing in the dirt

In August, when it was time to pick the beans, I enlisted the help of my visiting grandchildren. I offered to pay them a penny for each bean they found and picked. Tyler and Ali were diligent workers, earning the most money--about 50 cents each. Eliza picked 14 beans and then was off for another adventure. Ali was very proud of being able to pick the beans without pulling up the whole plant, (and so was I)! The next time she was at my house, she wanted to pick more beans (and get paid for it, of course!) The grandchildren love looking for lovely flowers to pick, and the older ones, like Lizzie, love to climb in the red maple tree.

This summer I learned how to make hollyhock dolls. I remembered my grandmother making them, but didn't know how to do it. I searched online, and with a little experimentation, I discovered how to make them. I made one for each of the girls, and Eliza kept hers in a box in her bedroom. Several weeks later, she showed it to me and it had dried, and shriveled to about one inch tall, but still looked like a pretty, little doll. I was amazed!


It's now September, and we are searching for new pumpkins. When we see a big yellow flower, we know a pumpkin will soon be forming. When the pumpkins are green and small, I carve a grandchild's name on a pumpkin for each of them. As the pumpkins mature, the names scar over, and are easily read as the excited children hunt among the vines for the special pumpkin with their name on it.

I love growing a garden, but even more so, growing grandchildren!