Transcript: Youth Gardening

Zen Living
Episode “Youth Gardening”

Nicole Tomlinson: Thomas Jefferson once said of himself, though and old man I am but a young gardener. Well we are about to meet some truly young gardeners, who are learning the joys of growing food.
This is Emily Neiman of the sustainable food center, Hi Emily.
Emily Neiman: Hi, how are you?
Nicole Tomlinson: Good, I wanted to ask you a few questions about your youth program.
Emily Neiman: Well, we are working with the Alamo recreation center summer kids program, it is a city run program and they just happen to be right across the street from Alamo community garden. And so the kids can just walk right across the street to come over here and learn about where there food comes from.
Nicole Tomlinson: Well you look like our having lots of fun over here what’s your name?
Becka: My name is Becka.
Nicole Tomlinson: Is it really nice when you plant something and then you see what come out of the ground, what you made. How does that feel?
Becka: It feels good, because we are planting watermelons. And when they grow we are going to take them inside and wash them and eat them. I like helping my friends and making them feel good.
Nicole Tomlinson: So what do you know that the kids take away form this experience?
Emily Neiman: I like for them to really learn and understand where food comes from a lot of them they go to grocery stores and they think that grocery stores is where food comes from. They don’t realize that someone has put in countless hours to grow that food and learning what the process is from seed all the way up until it gets to your table.
Nicole Tomlinson: Hey Jerome, what is your favorite thing about gardening up here?
Jerome: My favorite thing is like, to come out here and help make this place a better garden for people to come in and look at.
Nicole Tomlinson: So what kind of foods do you grow?
Jerome: I like to, well watermelons, pineapples and stuff like that.
Nicole Tomlinson: Pineapples here?
Jerome: Yeah, I think.
Nicole Tomlinson: that’s awesome so how big do they get, the watermelons? Do they get huge?
Jerome: They get pretty big.
Nicole Tomlinson: How long does it take to grow one?
Jerome: About a couple of months. Like when I come, is it finished? No, then I go back doing things. Is it finished? No, go back doing things. Come back, is it finished? When it finally grows it makes me feel like I did a great thing.
Nicole Tomlinson: I see a bat house over there, are there really bats in there?
Jerome: Yeah.
Nicole Tomlinson: What are they for?
Jerome: they are for, to like if we see any mosquitoes or anything come over here, there is a whole bunch of mosquitoes so the bats will go and eat it.
Emily Neiman: If you wanted to set up a gardening program maybe to get your kids involved one good way is to start a vegetable garden in your back yard or front yard. Even of you don’t have a backyard or a front yard. It is really easy to grow just a few vegetables in a container. Or you can start talking to your child’s school, or maybe talking to some of the teachers and see if they are interested in getting a vegetable garden started at school.
Nicole Tomlinson: so you can actually send people out to particular schools wherever and set up a little sustainable garden right there on campus?
Emily Neiman: Yeah we would love for every school everywhere to have a sustainable vegetable garden.
Nicole Tomlinson: So this is not just very unique and specific to this location? We could do this everywhere all over the country.
Emily Neiman: Right. Yeah, now when we first started I remember the kids would come over and they were kind of shy about touching the plants and touching the earth. Now I think after they have been working together for a month and a half, with there hands. Working on something to produce something. They really have, maybe heightened there self esteem.
Nicole Tomlinson: Sop they get more confidence by watching something they produced by themselves?
Emily Neiman: Right. I think the kids really build strong friendships here in the garden. And they learn how to work together, and teamwork. They like a lot of things about the garden but I think they are very favorite thing are all the bugs that they get to see.
Nicole Tomlinson: They grow the food, it comes out ready to be harvested, what happens to it? Do they take it home to their families?
Emily Neiman: sometimes, it depends on what, if they want to have a snack. Last time week for example we had some tomatoes and some Alamo spinach. And we took it into the Alamo rec center and washed it off and sliced up the tomatoes. And they made sandwiches the bottom being spinach leaf. The top being a spinach leaf. And then in the middle they had a slice of tomato. And they just ate it fresh out of the garden.
Nicole Tomlinson: And they liked it?
Emily Neiman: Yes.
Nicole Tomlinson: You got the kids to eat their vegetables?
Emily Neiman: Yes.
Nicole Tomlinson: So really parents, of you want to get your kids to eat their vegetables have them grow them.
Emily Neiman: They have such a strong connection to the vegetables that they started from a little tiny seed all the way up.
Nicole Tomlinson: That is amazing. Well there you go, of your every curious on how to get your kids to eat spinach and tomatoes, I know they could never get me to do it when I was a kid. So if you have kids, or are yourself of school age, why don’t you look into a local youth gardening program. It is a great way to learn about the food we eat and the best part is you get to play with bugs.
I am Nicole Tomlinson and from all of us at Zen Living, thank you so much for watching, and we will catch you next time. Peace.