Caitlin Kavanagh Gardening Speech
June 2018
Hello, I am Caitlin Kavanagh. I am a student at Fairborn Digital Academy. I have been going to Digital since February 2015. We have been doing a garden here every summer since. This year it was finally made into a Master Gardening Class. This class is half a credit. It’s a one of a kind class. We had our first class session April 10, 2018. We have a major sponsor from OSU. Mr. Aaron, Trevor and Ms. Kim have helped us a lot with the garden and teaching us.
We have planted zucchini, squash, pumpkins, green beans, tomatoes, corn, onions, lettuce, cilantro, morning glory, marigolds, and a flower bed. Gardening! It can be hard work. It is even dirty work. You dig up the hard earth and make its heart soft. Not only this, you have to plant it as well. You have to lay out different beds for different kinds of plants. We laid down cinder blocks by ourselves for some of our beds. We put all the dirt down ourselves with buckets. We need a wheelbarrow! They require great care. They must get nutrition and water in time. All of this requires effort and to work smart.
So, a gardener has to play the role of a mother all the time. You are the mother and the garden is the baby. You cannot leave your garden to the care of servants. No good mother leaves her children to a servant 24/7. She feeds her children with her own hands. Your garden, too, needs your personal care. It needs your love. Your love helps it grow well. Your garden requires food, water, and nutrition. But, above all, it requires your love and affection.
A plant is something living. It feels as a human and animal feels. So, you must love plants, as a lover loves their beloved. You should touch them gently. Your soft touch will make them smile. How fresh you feel in the company of plants. You feel even younger again among the beautiful plants of the garden. Your body and mind gets a new life. You work with your hands and feet. How fresh you feel! It is the very best of medicines and therapies. How charming it is to sit in a cool garden! How happy it is to see a lovely garden with lovely plants! What a feast for your eyes!
Even a simple leaf can teach what a hundred books cannot. How could Newton become such a great scientist? He watched the falling of an apple day after day in a garden and discovered the Law of Gravitation. You too can be a scientist if you watch plants and flowers with your own eyes.
The hobby of gardening is good for health, fitness, and recreation. It involves physical activity in open-air. The study of plant life is interesting. We got pleasure from the sight of flowers, plants, leaves, and fruits. Gardening is a good hobby for all genders of all age groups.
This class has surely taught me a lot. Even knife skills, canning, and freezing. I cannot wait to see what the rest of this one-of-a-kind class has in store for us. We still need a lot more donations. We work with what we’ve got though – as long as that pesky rabbit stays out of the garden. Otherwise we might have to sic Elmer Fudd on the rabbit. We’ve got to get a fence put up as soon as possible.
This class is something all schools should have. I think gardening is a better skill than being able to calculate the distance from the Sun to Mars. I hope more people learn to understand how wonderful, and what a good skill gardening is. We will be harvesting ours and then freezing some of it in the fall. We will donate some of it to the food banks, so people who don’t have much can eat. Again, my name is Caitlin Kavanagh; and finally after 2 years, we have the best, one-of-a-kind gardening class known to man. Go green! We are a community and a team!
