{"id":937,"date":"2010-07-15T16:42:09","date_gmt":"2010-07-15T16:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/2010\/07\/an-amazing-teen-gardener.html"},"modified":"2010-07-15T16:42:09","modified_gmt":"2010-07-15T16:42:09","slug":"an-amazing-teen-gardener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/07\/an-amazing-teen-gardener.html","title":{"rendered":"An amazing teen gardener"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alexandra Reau is not yet old enough to drive, and just look:<\/a><\/p>\n

Lawn mowing and baby-sitting are standard summer jobs for the enterprising teenager. Alexandra Reau, who is 14, combines a little bit of each: last year, she asked her dad to dig up a half acre of their lawn in rural Petersburg, Mich., so she could farm. Now in its second season, her Garden to Go C.S.A. (community-supported agriculture) grows for 14 members, who pay $100 to $175 for two months of just-picked vegetables and herbs. While her peers are hanging out at Molly’s Mystic Freeze and working out the moves to that Miley Cyrus video, she’s flicking potato-beetle larvae off of leaves in her V-neck T-shirt and denim capris, a barrette keeping her hair out of her demurely made-up eyes. Who says the face of American farming is a 57-year-old man with a John Deere cap?
\n“Let’s see,” says Reau, a quiet honor student who’s a little taken aback to find a New Yorker in giant sunglasses asking her questions in the plot next to her tidy white-brick ranch house on a June afternoon. “Those are carrots, spinach, beets, kale, watermelon, squash, zucchini, peppers, lots of tomatoes . . . um . . . corn, radishes, lettuce, beans, onions, garlic.” The weeds that sprung up during her recent class trip to Washington, D.C., are taunting her as we talk. When I tell her that people pay $4 a bunch for the purslane that’s growing into the burlap coffee sacks she has laid down along the rows for quick weeding — she flips them over to uproot any invaders, kind of like waxing your garden — you can see her 4-H wheels turning. (She’s been a member for half her life.) <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Get this:<\/p>\n

While we eat a colorful salad of spinach, strawberry and goat cheese (Reau’s spinach and strawberries, local goat cheese), deviled eggs (bartered) and strawberry shortcake (local, good) in the Reaus’ toile-curtained dining room, [Alexandra’s mother] Brenda explains that a quarter of last year’s members told her that they were attracted to Garden to Go because it was a young person’s effort. “They want to support someone who is interested in working instead of being on the Internet all day!” Brenda says. “And growing food. . . .” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, hell yeah. Good for her. I’d support a good, hard-working kid like that in a heartbeat. Wouldn’t you? Go to that NYT story and look at the photograph of her chard. Unbelievable, the things she’s accomplished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexandra Reau is not yet old enough to drive, and just look: Lawn mowing and baby-sitting are standard summer jobs for the enterprising teenager. Alexandra Reau, who is 14, combines a little bit of each: last year, she asked her dad to dig up a half acre of their lawn in rural Petersburg, Mich., so…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-food","category-morals"],"yoast_head":"\nAn amazing teen gardener - Rod Dreher<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An amazing teen gardener - Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alexandra Reau is not yet old enough to drive, and just look: Lawn mowing and baby-sitting are standard summer jobs for the enterprising teenager. 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