Garden helps sow seeds of hope amid challenges

We adults who work summers feel envious of those carefree children on their bikes. We forget that childhood summers off also meant some existential hours during the long day. Remember being 10 and 11? Remember 4 p.m. on hot summer weekdays, nothing to do, and that sinking feeling that all other 10- and 11-year-olds were somewhere else having a blast?

I’d forgotten those hours, but then I chatted Monday with Tanner Jackson, 10, and Monte Cesal, 11. They know those boring hours. They counter them by gardening. Yes, gardening.

Almost every day, Tanner and Monte ride their bikes to a garden on the grounds of Garry Middle School in north Spokane. There they greet Kathy Dellwo. The garden is her creation. Two years ago, as a Vista volunteer, she conceived the idea. And the community – students, teachers, staff, neighbors, businesses – worked together to make it happen.

Kathy is 60 years old but looks younger. Maybe it’s the daily yoga. Or daily prayer and meditation. Or maybe it’s working a garden project for two years with young people. Kathy is somewhat shy in person. This belies her strong opinions, opinions she sorts out in writing. Of the garden project, she wrote: “We have removed our children further and further from nature, from what is natural. Is a big cement windowless building filled with 650 12- and 13-year-olds natural? The mood of our country brought me to the garden two years ago. The current administration has been all about fear and destroying whatever stands in their way. All I could think to do amid all the talk of war was plant a garden and share it with children. We might bring some peace to this crazy world through our little garden.”

This is the second summer the garden has produced vegetables, herbs and flowers. Tanner and Monte, two of the many neighbor kids who help with the garden in summer, gave me a tour. Monte showed me his favorite crop – potatoes.

“These started from seeds,” he said. “I planted them myself.”

The boys like watering best and weeding least. Kathy requires all the kids to do both, the yin and yang of garden duties. Halfway through the tour, Monte shouted: “Holy moly, Kathy, we’ve got one! Do you want us to pull it?” A zucchini. No, Kathy said, twist it off. He did. He gently placed it under the shade of a pine tree so the heat wouldn’t ruin it.

There is a cyclone fence around the 30-foot-by-40-foot garden, but no locks on the two gates. Two weeks ago, at 11 at night, four boys on bikes tore up the garden. They had destroyed more than 100 plants by the time a neighbor drove his truck up on the sidewalk next to the garden to halt the rampage. The boys ran off. The police came. The boys have not been located, Kathy said.

The next day, Kathy gathered her young gardeners together. They cleaned up the mess. Then they discussed the future of the garden. In an e-mail to garden supporters, Kathy wrote: “The kids had many ideas about securing the garden – bright lights, alarms, building a roof. They decided that we can and will do our best, be smart and be faithful, but that nothing is certain. They were glad that the day before a generous man helped the kids take lots of pictures of their favorite plants. Neighbors, custodians, kids biking by and one grandmother of a student all came to offer their support.”

Tanner told me that the day after the rampage, he felt sad. “All of our time – ruined.” I asked him what it taught him about life. He shrugged, then said: “Life isn’t always perfect and stuff.”

Kathy will leave the garden project at the end of this growing season. She has signed on for a similar project in a rural community north of Spokane. Her dream is that the school district will hire someone to keep the garden project growing with the help of students, staff and neighbors.

This is unlikely in a tight budget time, but I hope the garden project survives and spreads to other schools, because Tanner and Monte will now grow from boys to men who know the secret of seeds and weeds and watering. And when something random destroys what they have worked hard to build, they’ll possess the memory of reworking a vandalized garden, long ago, in that summer when they were just 10 and 11 years old.