Another reason to love gardening

This morning a friend and I went to the Seattle Tilth annual plant sale. I've been for several years in a row and I love this sale...it's terribly addictive, since they have all kinds of vegetable and herb starts and they're awesome!

Well, it turns out that we got there 35 minutes after the sale started and the line was INSANE. No, really, it was crazy. They set up differently this year, so people had to wait to get into the sale instead of waiting to check out. All in all, that's probably a better setup than before, but when we got there and it was a line that would probably take about 2 hours before we even got into the sale, we decided we wouldn't be able to wait.

But we spotted a booth that was outside the sale, and there were plant starts there. We decided to check it out. It was the Seattle Youth Garden Works booth, and they were selling starts that they had grown. There were teens manning the booth and answering questions. I decided to have a look, since I needed to get some tomato starts for another friend.

The two teenaged boys behind the booth were so pleasant and friendly, and I asked them whether they'd grown the plants themselves -- yes, they had -- and what got them into gardening. One young man said he had loved to plant things for a long time and planted wherever anyone would let him -- his church, etc. -- and liked the opportunity to do more. The other said (this is a shortened paraphrase), "I needed something different in my life...I find gardening relaxing. I love watching the garden change from spring to summer and having a part in that."

It's not often anymore that I feel like I have a whole lot in common with teenage boys -- at least, not ones that I've never met before -- but I really felt like I had a connection to this kid because we both grow in the garden.

As we were headed back to the car with our starts, my friend asked if I knew about Seattle Youth Works. I had vaguely heard of them, and my friend was telling me that they're a program that works with inner city youth to give them somewhere to go and something positive to do in the out-of-school hours. So the gardening program is an offshoot of that.

I have to say that I was so favorably impressed by these kids -- and by connection, this program -- and it's another reason to love the power of the garden.