ABERFOYLE – While the Puslinch Junior Gardeners club turns 40 this year, that piece of history was mostly lost on the youth that gathered behind the Puslinch Community Centre on May 11 for the first meeting of the season.
More important to them was meeting their friends again, learning what plants they’ll be growing, and paying close attention to instructions on how to mark, measure and dig a garden plot.
The club is geared to youth from Grades 1 to 8 and they meet as a group twice in the spring and once at harvest time to prepare their entries for the Aberfoyle Fall Fair.
The rest of the season, they take care of their own gardens at their own homes with assistance from club instructor Maryann Hohenadel, who’s been leading the club for 17 of its 40 years.
“I was born and raised in the garden,” she said.
“My grandparents were market gardeners, and I was a market gardener. It’s a very good learning experience for the kids.”
Hohenadel has done some research and many of the seeds that will be planted this year are the same varieties the first group of junior gardeners planted all those years ago.
They’ll be growing King sunflowers that might reach 14 feet tall, asters and zinnias, beets, carrots, potatoes, onions, tomatoes and peppers. The challenge is to see who will grow the biggest of the selection.
Also new this year is a garden plot at the Puslinch Community Centre. Council recently approved the club establishing a demonstration garden in the area near the batting cages and on May 11 the ground had been cleared and the young gardeners were pleased that other community members will be able to watch this demonstration garden throughout the season.
“Some of them know a bit; some of them know exactly nothing,” Hohenadel said of the 27 youth who signed up for the club. “But they always learn something.
“I think every kid should know where food comes from and how good it tastes when you grow it yourself.”
Hohenadel said she hopes to find another gardener to lead the club. She’s 76 and has some physical limitations. But after not being able to run the club during the pandemic, she was keen to get seeds in the hands of the young gardeners and decided to give it another year.
Carly Seeley enrolled her two kids in the club. One is in the intermediate level and the other is a junior.
“They enjoy gardening. They think it’s neat to have something to look after and call their own. And I certainly don’t mind the vegetables,” she said.
Thirty years ago, Greg Macpherson was a junior gardener himself and now his kids have joined the club.
“I think it’s important for kids to know how to do it,” he said.
“We have a hobby farm, so they know something about chickens and goats and pigs.
“Nobody wants to pull weeds, but they all want to eat. It doesn’t hurt them to know that growing food is hard work.”
