Sunday I had a brief, one hour window to work in my own garden. The sun was out, and it was relatively warm. Alas! I had so many pressing priorities that I couldn’t get out in the garden until late in the day. And, when I did get out there, my 3-year old friend Anna came to help.

Anna has been visiting my garden since she was just a few months old, so in many ways she thinks of it as her own garden. Her youth gives her a sponge of a mind that has absorbed and retained lessons that many adults have difficulty retaining. And, she’s incredibly curious and asks brilliant questions.

Yesterday, I handed her a little spade to use in the garden. My small worm bin spade (aka a camping shovel) is the perfect size for small kids. Anna hugged it close and toddled thru the garden looking for chores. I set her to digging a hole. She asked a really curious question, “Heyrobin” (that’s how she starts anything with me these days; I guess I have a new name.) “Heyrobin, what’s this?”

I looked at the hole she was digging and didn’t get her question at first. Then I realized she was asking me what the mulch was that she was digging up. Wow! That made me step back and realize she’s ready to learn that she’s standing on a planet and digging a hole in the earth. So began a long discussion (at a very basic level) of “what is” the mulch layer and then the soil layer below it. “What is” the place roots grow and “why” rocks are in the soil.

As she dug her hole, I worked on lifting a volunteer japanese maple out of the ground in a place it doesn’t belong. Then, together we planted it in her hole. Sure, it may not make the mid-winter transfer, but in many ways the tree was a weed in its prior location, and this was a fun lesson for Anna. If the tree makes it, she will enjoy watching it grow with her. Right now she and the tree are the same height.

Later, as I cut back grasses and weeds, Anna brought the recycling bin lid to me to collect my cuttings. At one point she passed my strawberry bed. Last summer, her middleschool aged friend (another of my young pupils) taught her about the strawberries and told her how to check to see if the fruit was ready. Yesterday Anna “checked the strawberries”, and asked me why there wasn’t any fruit. When I answered that the fruit only comes in the summer, she asked “why”? Okay, another stumper. How to answer to a 3 year old that plants flower and fruit because of the way they have evolved? I didn’t have a good answer; I’ll have to work on that one!

As the sun dipped behind a tree, making its way toward setting, Anna mounted my front porch steps to enjoy the last rays. She then helped me gather up all our tools and yard waste to put away before she helped me pick some Witch Hazel and Yuletide Camellia to take home to Mom. (Though Anna decided “the yellow one” was Anna’s.)

I’m amazed at what Anna remembers and the questions she asks. She and so many other children I work with are eager, interested and so very willing to really get into the garden. I hope my work with them helps impact their generation to build a greener, healthier planet. And, if my experience with Anna tells me anything, its that our work together is building a greener planet, one little thumb at a time.