It turns out to be a lot of fun to have a five year old helping in the garden. He lives in a city house in San Francisco, with a front yard that pretty much defines itself right there, and a back yard consisting of a deck over a small patio. When I asked him if he’d like to

go into the garden with me, he said “Gardens are ridiculous.”

We went into my garden anyway. I showed him the asparagus patch, which is now all ferny tops, the spear season being over.

“Asparagus?!?” he said, incredulous. “Asparagus?!?” He laughed. I was making no progress against the idea of garden ridiculousness.

But when the next thing was to put compost on it, which meant digging dirt out of a big pile, carting it over to the asparagus patch, and dumping it between the ferny bits, he was into that. Like, literally into it. Kids and dirt are a classic combination.

After that, I suggested we check out the blueberry bushes.

“They’re green,” he noted. Yes, well, it’s early in the summer. But look! One blue one!

Guess I’m lucky he’s too young for eye rolls.

We walked by the squash plants with no squashes yet, the pumpkin

 

vines with no pumpkins yet, and the eggplant plants with no eggplants yet. Maybe I’ll try to get him to come out in August next year.

 

 

But at the tomato plants we ran into a little luck. I’d planted a single seedling called a Fourth of July tomato, and though

it was running a week late, there was one perfect, red, glorious if small fruit dangling there.

“Tomato!” he said happily as I twisted it off the vine. He bit into it with a look of absolute glee on his face, his smile half obscured by the first tomato of the season, juicy, bright, and not at all ridiculous.

 

 

 

— for Zerlina’s view of this visit, click here