Passing it On: Sharing Geeky Gardening With Your Children

Observing the Garden (Photo: Jenny Williams)

One of the joys of being a geeky parent is sharing your intense interests with your geeklings. When geeks are into something, they tend to be really into it, which gives a deep well of knowledge and passion from which to teach. Some people delve deeply into gaming, computers or typefaces; just about every subject is something that someone out there is geeking out on. For my husband Ed, it is gardening. Not your run-of-the-mill flower gardening, either. He prefers to grow edible things, which can sometime include flowers, but usually not. He’s taught himself so much about growing food, compost and culinary and dirt-improving mushrooms that he could write a book on the subject. And he probably will someday. But in the meantime, he organizes his thoughts on his blog, Mad Bioneer.

Two of his posts are particularly applicable to GeekDad. The first, called Passing It On, shows how easy it is to share the love of nature with your children. Opportunities for studying the wonders that go on in nature are everywhere, and observing nature can be fun to do together. Being patient enough to watch something over time, such as a spider catching, wrapping and eating prey, can give you a much better lesson than any textbook. It is also a great bonding experience for parents and children, and will likely be something that your kids will remember their whole life, if you keep the experience positive.

The second post, called Geeky Gardening, shows how one can experiment with gardening. You may not think gardening is a geeky pursuit, but if you’re into anything with enough gusto and depth, it can be. (And if you’re reading this blog, you already know that that is a good thing.) The way Ed experiments with gardening and plays with nature is certainly geeky. It feeds his soul. There is often a lot more to a subject than first meets the eye, and if you like to try new things and perfect your methods, the journey can be as enjoyable as the destination (such as eating the food you grow).

How do you share your geeky pursuits with your children?