Backyard garden nurtures teamwork for one Blaine family

Green beans, peppers, butternut squash and tomatoes are a few of over a dozen seedlings waiting to be harvested this summer from a Blaine family’s backyard garden. While the family works to teach two children the importance of caring for crops, they are also teaching them a lesson on teamwork and reward.

The idea for a home garden sprouted after Diane Major shifted roles from running Major Arts, a Blaine art business she and her husband Brian founded, to becoming a teacher for her two grandchildren, six and 10 years old, after Blaine Elementary School transitioned to online schooling on March 16.

“I’m trying to keep them engaged. They need hands-on experience, they need a broad spectrum of learning and they also need to eat,” Diane Major said. “The garden truly fell into place.”

Major, who hasn’t gardened at this scale in nearly 15 years, began researching how to start a garden two weeks ago with the children.

“We started reading about gardens. We took out the notebooks and drew pictures,” Major said. “We talked about what we wanted and then we put the shovel to the ground and started doing the work.”

The Major family measured the six-by-12 feet and four-by-12 feet gardens before ordering soil. Diane Major said she tried to keep the kids as involved as possible, but her husband helped with tasks the kids couldn’t do, like shopping for materials and constructing wooden frames for the raised beds. After about five days of work, the remaining step was to put a roof on the garden’s frame. The frame will trap heat, speeding the process of growing the produce, Major said.

The children are learning how to execute a plan to work together for desired results, Major said. Every time the children visit Major’s home, which is almost every day, they always go to check on the garden’s progress, she said.

“These plants are growing. They’ve been in the ground for a week and they’re already growing and the kids can see the progress before their eyes,” Major said. “It’s very rewarding for them to see that the little seedlings of carrots that we put in two weeks ago are popping up. They’re nurturing them.”

Na Major, a fourth grade student, said her favorite part of the garden is playing with her family. “We get dirty and we laugh so much,” Na said. “We spray each other with the hose. We especially spray our mother.”

For Na, the best part of the process is planting the vegetables. She is especially excited about growing lettuce that she will use for a salad. Diane said Na’s mother will also use the produce and herbs to cook delicious Vietnamese recipes.

Peas will be the first harvest in June, one of many harvests that Diane Major anticipates for the coming years. After seeing positive results from creating the garden, she hopes this activity will be sowed across Blaine by other families.

“Keep the kids involved and laugh a lot,” she said. “Enjoy it because the children will follow.”