The more I see the high tech generation of twenty year olds, the more I worry.
We were in the local Nissan dealer about a week ago. A young mother in her twenties was there with baby.
As we came in I could see she had an Apple iPhone.
Eventually my wife and I started talking to her. She and her Marine husband had just moved to the area from Las Vegas.
Somehow we got around to talking about tomatoes, local produce, and finally strawberries.
It seemed she had seen a few signs around in the last couple of months for U-Pick Strawberries and was thinking it would be nice to take the family berry picking later in the summer.
Somehow it did not dawn on her that strawberries might be seasonal. We broke the news to her that because of the heat and early season, most area strawberry growers had bush hogged their plants the last of May.
She seemed taken back that the berries wouldn’t be there to pick when she wanted them.
As fewer and fewer of us have any experience on the farm or gardening, we are divorcing ourselves from some very basic skills that I don’t think should disappear.
I would like to see schools teaching gardening. Everyone needs to know how to get their hands dirty and grow food. It’s not complicated and does not cost a lot of money if you can find some good space.
I would much rather be a nation of small gardeners than a nation which is expert at all facets or the iPhone.
My generation was rescued from a similar fate by the back to the land movement of the seventies.
Many of us fell in love with growing things back then and have never given up on plants. We also learned out to can and freeze food.
I wonder how many people who are twenty years old can make sauerkraut or plant a row of corn.
It’s worth more than knowing how to work an iPhone.
Our technological infirmity 
I see this in people too…it’s one of the reasons I am going out of my way to teach my son the basics. We are doing a garden this year and will each year to come. He’s only four but he knows a lot about where food comes from, even compared to many adolescents.
I do agree, even though you are being a little critical of the 20 something girl who maybe knew strawberries were seasonal but didn’t know what season they grew in. Technology is supposedly the creation of nature but what about the simple things that the mothers and fathers of this generation are missing out on?
riding a bike?
carpentry?
plumbing?
sowing?
instead of having a husband be the handy-man in small cases of breakage around the house you’ll have to make a phone call and pay someone large sums of money to fix a simple leak.
Danielle Alexandra http://la-morte-amoreuse.deviantart.com
I completely agree. Also, there is a book out now by James Pollan titled In Defense Of Food which follows up on your concern with some astounding information and research.
As for the remark regarding being a nation of “experts in all facets”, this is impossible. We can acheive expertise in a given field, but theres no way anyone can be great at everything.
I am a 23 year old and I know a lot about farming (not everything though). I use my knowledge to inform my produce purchases (if it’s not REALLY in season, then don’t eat it!) and when I move to a palce with more land available I plan on planting a garden.
You mentioned being a nation of small gardeners? Have you thought about the ramifications? If we were such, our fuel costs would plummet as transportation of food would decrease drastically. People would be invariably healthier as they relied less on processed foods (which studies suggest cause a vast array of health problems) and the cost of healthcare might decrease respectively. There are a great many things that simply growing your own food can bring about.
Necessity aside, gardening is very relaxing and rewarding. That’s another thing we 20-something people could use. There’s nothing like seeing your hard work grow and prosper.