I sat down with Julie Cerny, a community member who has recently written the delightful book “The Little Gardener”. She currently lives in Stuyvesant and has taught children about gardening and nature for more than 15 years. This book would be fantastic for Homeschooling and I encourage both children and adults to explore this wonderful holistic approach to gardening.
I noticed right in your introduction you mention – and I quote: “Until I was ten, a quarter of our tiny backyard was home to tomatoes, cucumber, mint, and more.” Most kids have no clue where to begin with starting a garden. Were your parents/grandparents influential in all of this? How did you get started on this project so at such a young age?
When I was a kid, my Dad had an extensive garden, as did my grandfather. So I always had it in the periphery. I grew up on Long Island until I was ten and we had a small backyard, the garden was in our backyard so I was literally playing in it! I always helped in the garden but often begrudgingly as a young kid and teenager. I always knew where food came from – there was never this illusion that it originated from the grocery store. My real interest in it formed through realizing that connecting to nature was very important, and actually vital to our survival. When I started getting into outdoor education work I knew I needed to get kids outside. This is a maple tree, this is a bluebird. But something still seemed to be missing as if nature was still this other thing outside of us. While working at this outdoor education center – while we were making maple syrup – I realized – oh my gosh – they are tasting the sap. So eating from nature – was my path at that point. Realizing food is nature and the best way to embrace and appreciate nature is when we eat it. So I started volunteering on an organic farm when I was about 22 years old at and it kind of took off from there. It wasn’t until after college nature when the lightbulb really went off – when I fully realized – food is nature, the most intimate way to engage with it is through food.
In your book you say “Many schools are still missing the mark when it comes to teaching students that everything is as intricately, deeply and beautifully connected as it is.” It sounds like you may have come from a homeschooling background – this type of holistic idea of education – occur to you later on in life?
I came from a fairly traditional educational background. It wasn’t until later on that I discovered the holistic aspect to education. Early on, I had a few teachers that were drawing connections between different subject areas, but most were still using walls between the different subjects. I realized no subject was bringing everything together quite like gardening did. For instance, you can do math and gardening, you can do writing and gardening, you can certainly learn about health, you can learn about history, you can learn about nutrition through gardening. So this idea that we have actual physical walls – the way classrooms are separated from each other – started becoming a foreign concept to me.
Different kids learn best in different situations. I personally wish I had more of an opportunity to have a holistic education. Having all those subjects mix together would have been a more realistic version of the way the world is, and more helpful in me understanding my place in that world.
I like how you mention that gardening cultivates ecological literacy and “a working knowledge of how ecological systems support all life on this planet”. There’s so much politically-charged green-talk these days. Do you think these politicians have a handle on ecological literacy?
I find that ecological literacy does not sit at the heart of most mainstream ideas in general. I think there is a huge disconnect between the mainstream green movement and what is happening in nature. I think that mainstream green movement sees nature as an other, not as it being one with us, not as if we are a part of it. Like nature we’re all made of carbon and water – and when we eat nature, it becomes part of our bodies. Most policies I hear about don’t reflect that idea. I do think that there are people out there who have an understanding of ecological literacy but the system is not designed to honor them in the law-making process. The system is set in doing things a certain way that it would be such a huge leap to just say – “Hey, let’s just take this decision for a minute and really see all the different ways that this policy positively and negatively affects all layers of all systems”. Generally, we don’t live in a culture that values the concept that everything is connected to everything else. They – our culture – still has these walls. Many policymakers are still thinking in terms where we are boxed in with distinct barriers between concepts.
Take solar energy – ok the sun is great – do I know enough about all the environmental impacts of mining lithium? I don’t know enough about that to be able to put solar energy at the very top of the list. I don’t have that kind of expertise to make a judgement call, but I do think that if we keep coming back to the fact that all of us being nature, and Nature is us – we would have to ask, what does this policy mean to us? I think by putting on different hats we could work through the discussion. So, I’m going to put on my pro-solar hat and then I think of the same topic wearing my pro-soil hat – and then I’m wearing my community-cultivation-connection hat. Some things may be really awesome on a community level but may not be so great for the soil. Some things may be great for soil but it may not be great to put a community center on that spot – a certain grassland bird can’t lay eggs there anymore for example. There’s always going to be a win and a loss. We need to have a balance.
Many of my readers are into self-sufficiency. Many people realize they have to start thinking about being more self-sufficient due to the Covid debacle. Gardening is one way to be self-sufficient. Were you inspired to write the book due to any situation arising out of this “pandemic”, or was it something you had already planned on doing and which was entirely unaffected by the circumstances?
My passion is connecting people to nature. Working with kids is even more exciting to me. I was actually asked to write the book by the publishing company. They knew I had been working outdoors with kids. They had attended some of the events at the Sylvia Center – an organization I used to work for and have mentioned throughout the book. Their mission is to connect kids and inspire them to eat well through hands-on experiences in gardens and kitchens. We would cook a meal on the farm using produce we grew right there in the children’s learning garden. I worked with thousands of children and their families both locally and coming up from New York City – so there was a wide range of demographics. The seed for the book had already been planted already, and the book – wildly – came out on March 10, 2020 – just a few days before things really started closing down – but it had been in the works for some time.
To me this book looks a little advanced for children – were you also writing for an adult audience?
The book is designed for an adult to get inspired to show kids how to grow a garden and use that garden to connect to and understand their place in the natural world. It’s really for a big gardener – maybe someone who is new to gardening, to hold their child’s hand so that they both can connect to nature through gardening. It could also be a step-by-step guide for a teenager who is new to gardening.
I wanted to give a parent, a teacher, a community member a blueprint for a very mindful, slow, and observational-based map to starting a garden. It’s really a slow-gardening type of book. Food is nature. The most intimate way to engage with nature is to eat it. I mean if you can take a year to really observe your environment before you start growing your garden – this will deeply tune you into all the different systems around you. And how the micro-climate of your space affects your vision for your garden.
I see you encourage your gardeners – big and small – to keep a journal while reading the book. Why do you think that’s important?
I’ve kept a journal since I was 11 – so I’m going on almost 30 years now. I found it to be a place I could go to reflect. The world is this big and complex place, and we are really awesome, and complex beings! It was a kind of quiet place I could go and process. I think it’s very important for us to make sure we carve out time for quiet reflection and processing. We think of great ideas all the time but then we don’t write them down and process them. I find it difficult to integrate the things I’ve learned unless I take the time later to ask myself some critical questions about how those ideas can apply to my life – like, can I make this use-able for me? In my book there are 2 or 3 journal prompts at the end of each chapter – just choose the ones that feel good for you or your little gardener to write about and process.
Where can we find your book?
You can find it in the Chatham Bookstore, The Spotty Dog in Hudson, Amazon, and Bookshop.org You can also request it wherever books are sold. Bookshop is great because they tie into independent bookstores.
Facebook: The Little Gardener
https://www.facebook.com/thelittlegardenergrows
Instagram: @thehappylittlegardener
Bookshop.org