One Girl’s Bean Plant Becomes Her Treasure: The Simple Science of Loving The Earth

I still remember the day I planted my first seed. I was in the 4th grade and my classmates and I were each charged with growing a green bean plant—a task I initially felt skeptical I could accomplish. Little did I know that I would not be the one in control!

I remember planting my seed dutifully in a small pot with some soil and covering up the whole enterprise with some Saran wrap. When I returned to my classroom after a lazy weekend of TV watching, I was shocked to find my seed was now a pint-sized green bean plant, having dramatically busted through the Saran wrap like a true champion. There was no doubting that this was some rare magic, and I immediately underwent a kind of inner transformation. What had been just another classroom experiment was now my precious bean plant, and I began to care for it with the kind of religious intensity I had previously reserved for my cherished guinea pig, Sparky.

Having grown up in an urban environment with easy supermarket access to an array of “perfect” produce, cultivating my first vegetable was a simultaneously empowering and humbling experience. From planting the seed in a pot, transferring the plant to my garden, and subsequently fighting off swarms of ants, to finally delivering my irregular beans to the table, I realized that food did not magically appear from Safeway shelves, already gleaming in a waxy perfection, but rather through the mysterious earth and through processes that I could not fully comprehend. The beans I could produce through my own labors did not resemble the supermarket superfood, but they felt intensely precious to me and, for the first time, I felt connected to and grateful for my food. That night, instead of hiding my beans in my favored kitchen table drawer, I ate all of them for the first and only time in my childhood.

Now, in my delayed adulthood, I still look at seeds and wonder how they ever transform into something as complex as a pumpkin or a dahlia flower. When I keep this sense of wonder with me, I have a better chance of having a humane relationship to the earth that is built on a sense of deep respect and even reverence. Similarly, I can feel into gratitude for the people who tend the earth, cultivate, and deliver our food.

We can easily foster this appreciation and respect for the earth by connecting our children to the processes of cultivation and even decomposition at an early age. If you care for or mentor a child, consider planting a seed together to help them feel into the power, and yes, humility of growing their own food.  But not to fear, this process of connecting a child to the earth is not some complicated astrophysics, and no preaching or brainwashing will be required, because the simple act of starting a seed with a child will help this spirit of stewardship take root.  As my friend and gardening guru always says: A child may forget the time you played a board game together, but she will never forget the day her homegrown sunflower sprouted up from the earth.

If you are low on gardening space, or just want more fun and community in your life, you can join the Watsonville Volunteer Center at our shared garden space next week at the Brewington Headstart site, where we will be working with preschoolers, cultivating veggies & flowers, and indulging in garden-themed read-alouds and art activities. After digging around for a while, you may find topics that had once seemed mundane (like dirt and plants), can become infused with a newfound sense of joy, appreciation and even wonderment & let’s face it—we could all use a little more of that...

—Laney Rupp