Grandma's Garden

The garden sits at the corner of the walkway from the cafeteria and playground.  

The students line up, quietly, against its southern wall before they are allowed to play.

The fence is low enough to clamber over; it's not to be touched.

In comes Grandma, with soil and trowels and excitement.

It's hard to contradict the playground aides, but I really did give these girls permission to climb on and over and on the bench where, with sandpaper and a delicate touch

they cleaned out decades of dirt from a sign that lived in G'ma's garden.  

Bigger kids with longer reaches soon joined the party.

We set to work, amending the beds.

There were starter flowers, newly planted but lacking love and attention.

We had lots of that.

After scraping away the random detritus,

("No, you don't need gloves.  Get dirty.  It'll feel good.")

they spread a top coat of organic planting mix 

from edge to edge.

The first crew worked as partners, with almost everybody remembering to stay off the wood frame.

My large bag of planting soil wouldn't cover the beds very deeply, but with a light sprinkling of water from the world's smallest watering can, the droopy plants we met when we began were perking up by the time the whistle blew. 

Nobody asked me for a sticker.

Everybody said Goodbye!! and Thank You, Grandma.

It was a good day in the neighborhood.