By Nettie H. Francis
When I was young, my family held a special “Garden Family Council” early each spring. Sitting around a big table and with Daddy acting as scribe, all thirteen of us would shout out everything we wanted to plant in our family garden that year. Tomatoes, beans, corn, carrots, lettuce and radishes were regulars. Some years we were more daring, adding cantaloupe, big blue morning glories, and Jack-Be-Little pumpkins to our garden wish list.

After the list of “vegetables to be” was made, each child chose two or three crops he wanted to be exclusively in charge of caring for. We solemnly swore to work hard and hoe every row. Our council ended with the family gathered around a large piece of white butcher paper, drawing a sketch of the future garden and assigning vegetables and caretaker children to specific rows.

During the next few days, promising signs of spring began to show. One day Mama came home with a new pair of garden gloves for each of us. We tried them on and modeled them all over the house, dreaming about our future vegetables. Then the warm weather came.

At dinner Mama announced cheerily, “Tonight is garden night!” The response was less than enthusiastic.

“I’m too busy.” “I have too much homework.” “There’s something else on my schedule tonight.” The list of excuses went on and on.

“No, tonight is garden night!” Mama and Daddy insisted. So we grudgingly put away our books or toys, hung up the phone, changed our clothes and went outside.

Our reluctance didn’t last for long. The minute we were in the garden the fun began.
Talking and laughing together we’d work on our individual rows–digging, furrowing, and planting. We prided ourselves in a neat row, and marked each one carefully with a stick and a seed package.

As we worked, we sang songs and talked about the happenings of the day. Outside, with no TV or radio blaring, conversation came easily and family ties grew more quickly than the seeds in the freshly turned earth. When the stars came out, Mama would bring a bucket of ice cream outside, and we would lie on the grass, licking ice cream cones and admiring the evening’s work. Satisfied, relaxed and a little bit dirty we reluctantly went back inside to homework and evening chores and then to bed.

It’s been several years since I spent an evening in the garden as a child. Rocking my own baby I look out the window at the trees. Their branches are budding. The snow has all but melted from the grass and tiny green tulip and daffodil shoots are poking up through the damp earth.

As my baby drifts off to sleep I set him in his crib and then go to the kitchen to prepare dinner. Tomorrow I’ll buy garden gloves at the store. We’ll also need some seeds and a shovel.

The smell of warm soup and biscuits fills the air as my husband comes through the door. His day of work is done. After dinner is finished and the dishes cleaned up, we get out a piece of white butcher paper.

“Let’s plant carrots,” he says.

“And radishes, beans and corn,” the children add. The list goes on and on. Our dreams are bigger than our patch of earth out back, but we draw a sketch of it anyway. Satisfied and full of anticipation we roll up our “garden to be” and put it in the corner. We must wait a little longer. Spring is not here quite yet.

A few nights later the dinner is burned. My family is tired from work and school. The baby is cranky from being indoors all day; and my head is spinning with worries and house chores. My husband looks up from where he is paying bills at the table.

“Tonight is garden night,” he says. A smile crosses my lips and a fresh breeze fills my heart. Without looking back at the dishes or the bills or the dirty floor, we pick up our new gloves, take our baby and go out into the cool evening.

It’s been a few seasons since my husband and I grew our first garden. But our testimony of gardening has grown each year. Here are a few thoughts that may help sprout your own conviction of family gardening.

Why Garden?

• The Proclamation to the world states that families should be engaged in “wholesome recreational activities.” Gardening is wholesome and recreational!

• When children “invest” in growing food, they gain an appreciation for what they eat. Gardening also brings gratitude for our blessings and for this beautiful earth we live on.

• Gardening teaches life lessons. Children can relate to the law of the harvest, trial and error, and eternal consequences. These and other examples are highlighted in the process of raising a garden.

• Gardening builds self-reliance. We should know how to grow a garden, even if we don’t currently depend on it to sustain our food supply. During times of war and wide-spread calamity, farmers generally fare better than others because they have their own food source.

• “The prophet said to plant a garden…” (Children’s Songbook) Enough said.

For me, the initial difficulty in family gardening is getting all of us out of the house.
Once we are outside, we generally find so much to enjoy and spend time on, that it’s hard to get everyone back inside once we are finished!

Although we now have several years of gardening under our belts, we’re still not masters at the task.

However, we continue to plan our yearly gardens, plant seeds, and enjoy what we do produce. Even when we don’t grow a bumper crop, the times we do spend together in the family garden always cultivate memories and experiences worth harvesting.