Park Day in Franklin

 

Cultivating Community Spirit and Green Thumbs

My role as a parent is to cultivate, nurture, and raise tiny human beings who are considerate, responsible, and conscious of the world they inhabit. During our park day in Franklin we discovered a community garden. It was great! Much bigger than our own two raised garden beds, this little paradise of flowers, herbs and vegetables outnumbered ours by 53 at least. But more than a collection of plants, the community garden is a testament to what like-minded people can achieve when they come together and put their hearts into a shared objective.

Upon entering the garden, my kiddo’s eyes shimmered with joy and curiosity. His fingers itched to grab a gardening tool, in this case a watering can, and instinctively, get to some gardening. Here though, every plant had a story and every patch represented someone's hard work, or lack of. We chatted with a woman who was painstakingly removing tiny bugs from a viney plant and pointed out the culprit of her troubles – the next garden bed over, where that same tiny troublesome bug ate the whole plant. I think there is a moral there or at least a good teaching moment about doing your part in community efforts.

Of course, because I can’t help myself, this visit to the community garden turned into an outdoor classroom. From learning the names of various plants and understanding their growth cycle to getting practical knowledge about composting, watering, and garden maintenance – there was an opportunity to stretch horizons way beyond my expectations for this particular park day.  

There was a palpable sense of community woven through every aspect of the garden. The idea that this beautiful space was not just the result of one person's hard work but a collective effort engendered a notion of shared responsibility, and there was a sense of belonging, identity, and pride that sprung from this shared green space. Engaging in community gardening illuminated the wonderful confluence of learning, social interaction, and environmental stewardship. In all its’  bloom, the community garden, is an essential tool to educate the next generation about nature's delicate balance and their role in sustaining it. The best part was to see how gentle my kiddo was with the plants, which he learned right in our own backyard.