The more I see the high tech generation of twenty year olds, the more I worry.
We were in the local Nissan dealer about a week ago. A young mother in her twenties was there with baby.
As we came in I could see she had an Apple iPhone.
Eventually my wife and I started talking to her. She and her Marine husband had just moved to the area from Las Vegas.
Somehow we got around to talking about tomatoes, local produce, and finally strawberries.
It seemed she had seen a few signs around in the last couple of months for U-Pick Strawberries and was thinking it would be nice to take the family berry picking later in the summer.
Somehow it did not dawn on her that strawberries might be seasonal. We broke the news to her that because of the heat and early season, most area strawberry growers had bush hogged their plants the last of May.
She seemed taken back that the berries wouldn’t be there to pick when she wanted them.
As fewer and fewer of us have any experience on the farm or gardening, we are divorcing ourselves from some very basic skills that I don’t think should disappear.
I would like to see schools teaching gardening. Everyone needs to know how to get their hands dirty and grow food. It’s not complicated and does not cost a lot of money if you can find some good space.
I would much rather be a nation of small gardeners than a nation which is expert at all facets or the iPhone.
My generation was rescued from a similar fate by the back to the land movement of the seventies.
Many of us fell in love with growing things back then and have never given up on plants. We also learned out to can and freeze food.
I wonder how many people who are twenty years old can make sauerkraut or plant a row of corn.
It’s worth more than knowing how to work an iPhone.
Posted by ocracokewaves 
