The results don’t surprise me, really. After all, the sample set for the survey was professional and recreational gardeners who chose to join a social network set up specifically for those of the green thumb persuasion. You’d expect these folks to be a little more interested in gardening than, say, all the aggregate members of Facebook or whatever.

Garden-Share suggests the survey data shows it’s all that much more important to get kids involved with gardening early. (I suppose, as long as you’re not involving them in World Naked Gardening Day, I can totally get behind this premise.)

The Garden-Share folks provide some handy tips for how to get said kids involved outside:

• Give them kid-sized tools;
• Give them toys (or, at least, play areas) in the garden;
• Give them their very own container to plant;
• Read them books about gardening (Johnny Appleseed is on the suggestion list); or
• Tie gardening to school subjects they like (I’m not really sure how this works with toddlers, but hey…if you’ve got a fourth grader who’s all fired up about life sciences, then, well, winning!).

There are two more suggestions that appeal to the I-am-still-a-kid side of me. The first? Plant a rainbow.

No, I know. Those of you who know my cynical side are probably all like, “Um, Genie? Plant a rainbow? You have been in California WAY too long.” And to that I say this: First of all, that I could actually plan out a garden where flowers came up in an orderly fashion in rainbow-colored rows is pretty much impossible. It would take a miracle, and honestly? I’d be as aghast as any little kid if I walked out in my (currently nonexistent) garden and discovered I’d grown something that appeared to have a plan to it.

But still. I’m intrigued by the idea of setting in plants so they create a pattern. I’m the kind of person who would totally try to spell out my kid’s name with tomato plants or something like that. (I would probably fail, but damn…it’d be a delicious experiment.)

The final suggestion, and the one I like the best, is based on the premise that kids (and, come on now adults, you know you love this, too…) love playing with water. The Garden-Share folks suggest having your kid help water the garden…with their water gun.

Please stop now, and imagine the possibility. A hot summer day. Super Soakers. A bunch of kids.

Yeah, I can see how this could be disaster, too, but holy wow…FUN disaster, right?

And I’m in favor of this, as someone who, well, learned exactly how much of a fun disaster gardening can be when I lived in Iowa.

So yeah. This summer? Find yourselves some 10-and-under kids and some water guns, and on a hot dry day in a garden near you, kick off an epic battle. If a couple of zucchini plants get trampled, no matter. It’ll be a blast, and you never know…you might foster the next generation of gardeners.

• The Inadvertent Gardener wants to hear from you
• How you can help Midwestern farmers
• Time for lunch…and a little activism
• Open for business
• Submit your idea for BlogHer Food ’12 in Seattle

But five things? That means I’ve learned more than one thing per year. Or something like that.

Regardless, today I’d like to invite you to step over to Heather Mak’s Five Takeaways blog, where I am featured in a post that tells you my five takeaways of gardening. Learn from me! Really! Your plants will be fine!

• A garden tour-inspired photo story
• Where it’s at: July 22
• Not a member of the society of snow lovers
• Further punishment
• The Inadvertent Gardener wants to hear from you

Hi. I am doing a guest post. I am 7 years old and I have a garden. I first got interested in gardening when I looked at my fairy book, and it showed how to find Flower Fairies by planting flowers. The Fairy Garden was a bunch of flowers planted in a tub. I watered it every other day and then it was doing well. I checked on it every day and once I saw a fairy in it! She was small, had hair to her shoulders and purple wings. She had a dress made out of petals, and she had bare feet and a hat made from an upside-down purple flower. I wrote a note to the fairies, and in the morning, on the back of the note a fairy had responded, and it said “Thank you” in big curvy letters.

Then I got interested in planting other things. This year I am planting tomatoes, lettuce, and zucchini, and I am going to plant a pumpkin. And my yard has a baby lemon tree and a tall fig tree, and the lemon tree has a lemon that is almost ripe. And the fig tree has a bunch of little figs. I like to eat the figs right off the tree. I also like eating cherry tomatoes and strawberries right off the plants in my yard. And there are also lots and lots of different types of flowers in my yard.

The first thing I harvested this year was lettuce. I never thought that I could grow lettuce that well! Salad is always better from your garden than salad from the store, because if it’s grown in other parts of the world, it has to take a long trip on a ship to get to the store. But if it’s in your garden, you can just have the salad without having to buy it from the store. The lettuce was delicious!

I hope you like my guest post!

[Note from my coworker: She protested eating salad before last week when she tasted the first lettuce she grew herself! Even her older brother eats salad without complaining now, which wasn’t the case before! Peaceful dinners: one more reason home gardens rule!]

• This is not a salad
• Guest post: A garden out of control
• Lettuce give it a try
• Colorful! Crisp!
• The lettuce is not plastic

I know. I sound like I’m Methuselah or something. But I swear to you, this is brutal stuff, and I haven’t even started talking about mosquitoes. Or earwigs.

This is why I squealed with delight when we rounded the corner of a house in Alameda during the Bay-Friendly Garden Tour and spotted a whole series of raised beds. And I’m not talking just slightly raised beds, people. I’m talking way the heck up.

OSHA would be proud. These beds? Utterly ergonomic.

Not only that, but my OCD tendencies positively purred when I noticed the elevated wooden beds had perfect little square boxes that held each plant.

And there were maps that charted out the whole planting pattern.

Now, my OCD side loved this, but the other side of me, the side that, some days, decides there is really no reason to make the bed nor hang up my clothes, shuddered a little bit. I don’t know that I could necessarily make a plan that involved rows and rows of perfect lettuce.

OK, maybe I could make the plan. But executing it would definitely be harder. Even at a comfortable, ergonomically-correct height.

• Bay-Friendly Garden Tour Highlights: Edible Kitchen Garden
• Friends don’t let friends use tape measures
• Snow and ice and Lenten sacrifice
• The unscented tomato seedlings of Home Depot
• Green explosion

The garden itself features artichokes, lettuce, berries, leeks, and a bunch of other tasty plants, and pretty flowers border each bed to help attract pollinators.

I think this just about describes my heaven. Ditch the lawn and start eating from right outside the front door? Brilliant, and perfect.

My very favorite detail of all? It had to be the use of wooden utensils as plant markers.

Spoons and forks dotted the beds, the name of the edibles carefully written on them in black ink. They were adorable, and this is definitely an idea I plan to steal for a future garden.

• Further punishment
• A-pee-logy required?
• 2007 resolutions
• Bay-Friendly Garden Tour Highlights: Raised Beds
• The secret garden, part 1

I had a beer at lunch, though, people. Don’t think I was going to let the day slip away completely free of substances!

But here is what I have learned from the garden tour: Some people have a hell of a lot of time on their hands. Some people have a hell of a lot of money on their hands. And some people have both, and I would like to come live in those gardens, please, oh yes, oh please.

I’m not going to mention who I think falls into any of the categories as I tell you a little about the tour, because, well, that would be indiscreet. But I will say that there are some fantastic gardens in the East Bay, and my friend Michelle and I only got to about seven of them. This week, I’m going to highlight (without giving away anyone’s addresses) some of my favorite elements of some of the gardens.

But if you can’t wait for a preview, and that Sunday’s Green Thumb photo wasn’t enough to tide you over, here’s a little slideshow from the day:

• Green Thumb Sunday: Indoor jungle
• Rocking the garden tour like Johnny Rotten at a tea party
• Bay-Friendly Garden Tour Highlights: Edible Kitchen Garden
• Green Thumb Sunday: A different spin on a garden bed
• Victory! Or, I found a garden (for the time being)

Each weekly post features a single story told in five photographic frames, without words. (I mean, really, people. Don’t I chatter on enough here? Who needs more words out of Little Miss Verbose?)

This week’s post emerged from last week’s garden tour, so I thought it was a most appropriate time to both introduce you to it. I invite you to step away from The Inadvertent Gardener and into this new little spot on the web. I hope you enjoy it.

• The nerd approach to garden location
• A temporary goodbye
• The Inadvertent Gardener wants to hear from you
• We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast…
• Three seasons of Spring

This is just a taste from today’s Bay-Friendly Gardens tour. More to come!

Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in Green Thumb Sunday every week. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

• Green Thumb Sunday: Indoor jungle
• Green Thumb Sunday: Where my garden was
• Green Thumb Sunday: Victory Garden yellow
• Green Thumb Sunday: State Fair children’s garden
• Green Thumb Sunday: Fire in the garden

“I could never do that anymore,” they say. “How old are you again?”

But this weekend? I’ve got hot plans, people. HOT plans. On Sunday, I’m hitting up a garden tour of the East Bay sponsored by StopWaste.org with a friend of mine. IT WILL BE CRAZY. We might see–wait–wait–examples of drought-tolerant landscaping! Topiaries! Flowers Of Unusual Size!

I have, in hand, a giant book of the gardens that are up for perusal. Basically, they’re just open for the day, and you pick a few, show up and wander around them, and ask questions, I assume, and point at things, and scribble notes. I’m guessing a lot of people will be wearing floppy-brimmed hats. Someone might be pouring lemonade, possibly made from lemons from their backyard tree. It’s entirely possible someone may look at me and say, “I would have never come to this when I was your age. How young are you again?”

My friend and I? She doesn’t know it yet, but we’re going to rock the garden tour. I may wear combat boots, and I just might sneak along a flask of bourbon. I hear it goes really well with lemonade, after all.

• Gardens where I’d like to live
• What makes a gardener?
• What to grow in shade
• Protecting the Victory Garden from too much Love
• Peas at a distance

• Three bags full
• Help at the hardware store
• Water: It’s a good thing
• Drill, baby, drill
• Dealing in wine barrels