We Are the Gardeners

Okay, our friends.

So today, because we are now starting a new season,

that's right, it is spring.

And when it is spring time,

we do important things like plant gardens.

And we watch new flowers, new life come up.

And to celebrate that,

we are going to read a book today called We Are the Gardeners.

And this story was written by Mrs. Joanna Gaines and her kids.

And the art is by Juliana Swaney.

And we cannot recommend this book enough.

It is a beautiful book.

And it tells us a really important story.

So buckle up, you guys.

We're going in.

And today's story is read by...

Where are you?

Who am I?

Mommy.

And...

Me?

Me?

Hey.

Huh?

I know who you are.

Yeah.

Say no more.

You are a villager who is singing the Steve's love a chicken song, right?

All right.

Well, villager, maybe you can be a gardener too.

You ready?

Well, just like that, friends,

my villager became a farmer.

Well, buckle up, you guys.

Here we go.

We are the gardeners.

That's a pretty official title.

But it didn't start out this way.

Just like our garden, we started small.

And grew from there.

Some say that a garden just grows from seeds.

But we think it grows from trying and failing and trying again.

A garden is hard work.

But so is most of the good, important stuff in life.

Our family's garden story began with one small potted fern.

Dad stumbled upon it at the hardware store when he ran in for some supplies.

He said it was just too cute to leave behind.

And he thought it would make mom smile.

And it did.

We chose a sunny windowsilver that pre-low fern.

It seemed like a good, safe spot for him to grow.

This was back when we were little kids.

But we still remember visiting the plant each day to give him a drink.

And sometimes we'd even whisper to him a bit.

Do you know that's important to do?

To talk to your plants?

Scientists don't know why, but they like it.

And then, plot twist, out of nowhere, our fern died.

Death by over hydration.

Just a fancy way of saying we gave him too much water.

Looking back, each one of us must have watered him every day.

That's a lot of drinks for a little plant.

And by mistake, we loved that plant to death.

Some people tell themselves they're no good at something after one small failure.

But no chance were we going to give up that easily.

So we checked out some books from the library.

And we found out that ferns can be tricky and prefer to live in a shady spot.

Apparently, a plant's leaves can communicate to us what they're needing.

We also learned that most plants have good manners, and like to sip, not gulp, wasn't learned.

Dad got us a fresh fern, and with it came fresh hope.

This time we set the pot on our piano, way on the other side of the room,

where the sun wouldn't give him so much attention.

And we made a watering schedule and took turns,

sang 11 nice things to our little sprout of a plant,

and fern number two lived and thrived and grew.

And finally, mom got him a little bodied friend, and then another.

And then one or two more.

And we noticed that talking to our plants actually helped them grow bigger and stronger.

And so we added some songs and some jokes into the mix,

unlike when we overwatered zero plants died from us talking too much.

And pretty soon, plants were taking over the house.

And dad said it was time to graduate to outdoor gardening.

Mom was excited about the new outdoor garden as we were.

And she started talking about it with a dreamy look in her eyes.

And that's been dad called a family meeting so we could come up with a real plan.

We gathered around the kitchen table and got to work, dreaming, and drawing things out.

We know we needed a sunny spot.

A place where the plants could sunbathe for at least six hours a day.

And we'd be red as radishes if we did that, but plants just love it.

And more than that, they need it.

In the garden, there is no life without light.

And in the picture, we can see they've got a map of where they're going to put certain things.

There's the water, there's a shed, they've got chickens too.

And then they're putting out plots where they're going to put each of their crops that they're going to have.

Dad always says that the foundation is the most important thing when it comes to building a house.

A house can't be strong if it's built on something weak.

And the same holds true in the garden.

So to make a foundation of our garden strong.

Yes, yes.

My friends in the pictures, we can see what my villager is saying that there are worms

and there are beetles fertilizing the ground here, eating away.

And they're making the soil good.

And that's exactly what this author is saying.

She says, to make the foundation of our garden strong, we filled it with something called soil.

Good soil, which includes a bunch of tiny living things called organisms.

It can grow things in it.

It's pretty amazing when you stop to think about it.

The whole hidden world of life is happening beneath our feet.

And just because you can't see the good things with your eyes doesn't mean they're not there.

And another cool thing about soil is that it feeds and strengthens the seeds we sow.

And then like a miracle, plants and flowers burst out of the ground.

We also knew we needed our garden to get plenty of water.

Rain is the very best thing for plants to drink, but it's hard to know when rain is coming.

So a couple other options to keep plants hydrated are to collect rain water

or use a sprinkler or garden hose to get the job done.

Once we had a location and plenty of sun and good soil and a watering plan,

we got right to work. First things, first, seeds.

The most fun part of planting out our garden was deciding what to plant.

We started with the foods we like to eat, like strawberries and tomatoes.

And then we chose some pretty flowers to keep them company.

And the thing about seeds is that they're everyday miracles.

Everything a plant will grow up to be is already hidden inside the seed.

We chose flowers like zineas, sunflowers, and cosmos that the pollinators would

visit our garden so the pollinators would visit our garden.

Exactly, like the carrots and potatoes and wheat that you can grow in Minecraft.

You can grow all kinds of things, okay?

And when you do grow them, you need to have them pollinated, right?

So that means you have to attract things that would move the pollen around.

Let's see what she says.

Butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, spread pollen around from flower to flower,

encouraging even more things to bloom.

We like knowing that little helpers are out there in nature working with us

to help this garden grow.

The bees must have put the word out that we had a pretty good thing going,

because sure enough, all sorts of other critters started to arrive.

We quickly found out that there are three types of bugs in our backyard.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Let's start with the worst part.

It was a pretty sad day when the aphids arrived.

There's some of the more well-known villains in the gardening world,

and they suck the life right out of plants.

But then the ladybugs showed up to eat those pesky aphids for lunch,

and ladybugs are for sure part of the hero camp,

bravely protecting our plant friends from harm.

And we got to tell you about earthworms.

They are like the secret agents of the garden.

Earthworms eat all of the dead things like old roots and leaves,

and then turn them into life for the soil.

Every time we found one, we would hide,

five, and celebrate.

And they aren't pretty, but who cares?

They're awesome.

And we love seeing them hard at work.

We realized pretty quickly that we needed to keep the weeds out.

They are the true bullies of the garden.

Weeds try to steal water and sunlight nutrients from our fruits and veggies.

And it's our job to make sure those little rascals don't take over.

Yeah, it's possible that worms could eat the weeds,

or maybe the aphids could.

There's lots of bugs that will eat them.

It's true.

If we ignore the garden for too long,

the weeds run wild and hurt our beloved plants.

It's so much easier to just do it a little bit every day.

We are officially gardeners and had a real life garden to prove it.

That garden became our pride and joy day in and day out.

We tended to our plants to make sure they got plenty of sun and water.

And every time a new plant sprouted up from the ground,

our excitement grew right along with it.

As time passed, our garden grew bigger and so did our family.

And when our garden was finally in full bloom and growing tall,

we'd run through the aisles and we'd watch the butterflies flutter around us.

But one day, as we were mid-skip, we noticed some trespassers helping themselves to lunch.

And by lunch, we mean half of the garden.

Animals may look cute and innocent, but some of them have a sneaky side.

And they can wipe out a garden in no time flat.

The chickens ate the vegetables, the goats ate mom's roses,

and the bunnies weren't picky at all.

They ate anything in sight.

Saying goodbye to that many happy plants was even harder than throwing away our first dead

burn. We debated if we should just give up.

It was really worth it to start all over again.

But then we remembered one very important detail.

We are the gardeners.

And it's our responsibility not only to grow this garden,

but also to protect it.

So we put up a little fence to keep the animals out and we got to work rebuilding our garden.

It didn't take long to get our plants and flowers growing tall again.

And to this day, our very favorite days are when we get to gather the fruits of our labor.

Mom loves to set the table with pretty flowers in every color you can imagine.

We help her dream up recipes for the food we've grown and sometimes.

When we see all of that beauty laid out, we can't believe our hands helped bring it to life.

And it makes all the hard work worth it.

It's what keeps us coming back day after day, season after season.

We still keep a little fern on the piano to remind us of our small beginnings.

And every time we water it, we're reminded not to give up when things don't work out the first time.

But the thing is, whether one potted fern dies or half of the garden is wiped out by those little

critters, every failure or setback teaches us something.

Dad says that every hard thing we choose to do makes us braver for the next time.

And there are so many lessons waiting to be learned and a whole world of gardening ready to bloom.

We are the gardeners and you can be too.

And that, my dear friends, is you going to say it with me?

The end.