With the arrival of spring, there’s a growing desire to be outdoors and do something interesting—something that brings joy, excitement, and sparks curiosity. At the Lillekese Youth Center, we’ve found gardening to be the perfect activity for this.
We started one Wednesday by weeding the flower bed in front of the gate at Lille House. We divided up the tasks on the spot—one person pulled weeds here, another there; the debris went into a bucket, and a third person carried it to the compost bin. After working for about an hour with our backs bent in the warm sun on Lille Street, it was time for the most exciting part—sowing the flower seeds. We had bought 20 packets of different varieties of flower seeds. Although we had no prior experience in creating a flower bed, we managed to get everything done. The flower seed packets certainly helped, as they had all the necessary information clearly and concisely listed on the back.
Our gardening “workshop” didn’t end with planting the seeds. Now we had to clean up the street, water the soil, and take the last of the organic waste to the compost pile. And then we decided to tackle a slightly wilder patch of land—the small slope in front of the Lille Youth Center building, where many branches had fallen from the trees above and where a large portion of the leaves on the lush green plants had dried out to a pleasant brown. This work no longer held much interest or joy for the young people, and after about twenty minutes, we wrapped up our activities.
But that day, the young people came up with a new idea during their work: “Let’s start a gardening club!” It’s a lovely idea and fits perfectly into our schedule for the coming months. Maybe soon, instead of dried-up plants and weeds, we’ll have a colorful array of flowers growing in our yard.
