Gardening can be for under 60's

Most people under sixty have little interest in gardening. Although this is a sweeping generalisation, in my experience coming from a working class background in south London, this seems to be the case.


Of course, there are many factors to consider. People leave school and have careers and kids and there is not always time for topiary and mulching. They have social lives and not everyone has a garden.


But almost everyone goes to school, and all schools have both grounds and a curriculum to follow. There's room in both for a bit of digging and planting, surely?


Without revealing too much into my hippie-like mindset rooted in the magic and wonder of nature, here is my gardening background and my thoughts on why it is that gardening is considered uncool and the exclusive hobby of the geriatric with one foot in the grave!


Speaking of graves, my grandfather sadly passed away a couple of years back. My journey into horticulture started with him - he encouraged and put faith in me as a child in a way which I am extremely grateful for now.


In retrospect that faith may have had more to do with him being too old and weak to do these things himself, and too tight-fisted to employ a professional. I prefer to think of it in more romantic terms though, choosing to believe he wanted to a) make a man out of the wimpy little kid I was and b) teach me skills I could later use professionally, should I wish to do so.


Aged 12 - I would cut the grass once a fortnight with the trusty light weight flymo.


Aged 13 - more of the same but I was now entrusted with the strimmer, too.


Aged 14 -as above plus painting fences and sheds.


Aged 15 - a drunk driver smashed into the rock wall along the side of my grandfather's house and to my bemusement I was to rebuild it with the briefest of lessons.


Aged 16 - he taught me crop rotation and had me digging over the veg plots and compost heaps, digging up every last weed and hacking back the overgrown brambles until they were down to ground level and I looked as if I'd been self-harming.


I enjoyed these jobs not just because I was being paid for the first time in my life but because I was weird and these things were fun to me!


So this brings me to my point of discussion: why are most other young people uninterested in gardening? Is it because it is physically hard? Does it appear unfulfilling? Is it because they haven't ever tried it? Or is it because they were never shown at a young age the rewards? 


The only thing remotely related to gardening I ever learnt at school was how to grow cress in an old egg box, on a window sill. Throughout my schooling I went on to learn lots of things, most of them were boring and I found the setting of a classroom draining. In fact I'd go so far to say that nothing in the rest of my school life inspired me as much as watching that cress grow, not algebra, not literature and not even learning how to say "my name is Terry and I live in Mitcham" in French (which sadly is still the sum total of my ability to speak foreign languages).


So maybe I'm lucky to have been encouraged by my grandfather and inspired by that cress. 


However, in my opinion schools should continue to get kids to grow things each year. It shouldn't be restricted to one hands-on session with that sacred cress in year 1 and then some heavy text about photosynthesis in year 11. It should be growing rhubarb in year 2, tomatoes in year 3 and goddamit who knows even pumpkins by year 6. Children have bags of energy matched only by enthusiasm. Is it too far fetched to imagine each school having a garden area where the children can learn the basics? 


I'm not saying that gardening will ever be cool for kids and that everyone should grow up to be as inspired by the process of composting and as intrigued by the sprouting of seeds as I am. But with a little more encouragement on the practical art of gardening in all schools throughout the country, maybe we'd have the next generation of children being named Monty or Carol after gardening idols, rather than being named Joey and Cheryl after people made famous for superficial aesthetics and the celebration of stupidity.