By Marion Mass, M.D.
I don’t want to write about the obvious benefits of getting your kids to help you grow organic produce: It tastes better, less pesticide exposure, sense of responsibility, sense of accomplishment. It’s the things I never expected to learn after growing produce with our children and their friends for over a decade that I would like to share with you.
Growing produce with kids fosters common sense. You can’t buy it at the world’s best universities! Neither of my parents went to college. So I had a little of the “do I belong here?” feeling in my first weeks at a top tier medical school. It went away.
A little common sense can carry you through many a challenge, but how do you help your kids get it? One way is by cultivating an appreciation for the natural world. As we continue to morph into an increasingly techno-rich world, we need to hold on to common sense!
You’re also fostering observational skills and curiosity. My then 8-year-old son and I were out in the garden during one of the early years. The whole top of a tomato plant had been gnawed back. “Stupid deer,” I muttered. But my son was looking at the ground below the chewed leaves. “What is this stuff?” he asked, “It looks like tiny animal droppings.” He began to look above those droppings, and found a 3-inch tomato-leaf-colored tomato hornworm (our first introduction to the culprit) camouflaged in plain sight.
He went to go read all about hornworms, and together we protected our crop by waiting until a beneficial wasp laid her eggs on the hornworm. The resultant larvae were predators of the hornworm and became adult egg-laying wasps themselves. Couldn’t have fixed the problem without my son’s curiosity.
Getting dirty is beneficial!
Gardening families have higher gut microbial diversity than non-gardening families. Research on the gut microbiome is getting some well-deserved attention, as a healthy gut microbiome has been shown to have beneficial effects on digestion, the immune system, metabolic functions, mental health and more.
It has also been hypothesized that one of the reasons that kids who grow up on farms have lower rates of asthma, food allergies and seasonal allergies is their exposure to dirt. (It’s nice to know that SOMEONE has lower rates!) It’s called the hygiene hypothesis. The arm of the immune system that responds to parasites (commonly found in the soil) is partly responsible for the allergic and asthma response pathways. The increasing lack of exposure to parasites has this part of the immune system ready to respond to other issues, such as environmental allergens, etc. Keep in mind, it still is a good (common-sense) idea to wash off your hands after gardening. Aim for exposure, not ingestion!
When you grow organic produce with your kids, they will try and eat more vegetables. Even the ones they think they hate. When our daughter and her friends grew and sold produce from our garden for a cancer charity, several of the girls started eating vegetables they had previously pushed away.
Gardening is a great time for communication, especially with the pre-teen/teen crowd. We all hear that advice: Talk to your kids in the car. There is something about the time spent pulling beets and picking beans that doesn’t feel like an interrogation to them and they talk. When they are searching for ripe peppers, they relax, let down their guard and open up.
Do you need any more reasons? It really is easier than you think! Start small … a window box, a 4 x 4 plot. Expand as you become comfortable with gardening. Start planning now by gathering advice from blogs, websites, books local gardening clubs and extensions. You will reap more benefits than an armload of beautiful produce!
Marion Mass, M.D.
Dr. Marion Mass is Co-Founder of Practicing Physicians of America, a member of Free2Care leadership, board member of the Bucks County Health Improvement Partnership, on the editorial board for the Bucks County Courier Times and Doylestown Intel, and a delegate to The Pennsylvania Medical Society.