Scout gardeners get down and dirty - and love it

Give two dozen 7- and 8-year-old boys a big old plot of dirt and they know exactly what to do with it.

Make mud!

"Watch out for the carrots!" pipes in one mother attempting to supervise an enthusiastic lad with a jug full of water - all being poured into one 3-inch-square spot. "Don't step on the carrots!" Carrots? his expression says as he looks down at his feet. Oh, those!

The Boy Scout motto "… to help other people at all times …" is thriving in Buffalo Grove where Cub Scout Pack 79 is Planting a Row for the Hungry.

The kids (and their parents) rented one of the community garden plots in Wheeling to grow vegetables for area food pantries. Their planting got off to a slow start, courtesy of this summer's wacky weather highs and lows.

"First they froze, then they got burned, now they're getting eaten," Pack mom Sandy Marek said. Ah, the predictable life of a gardener.

Twenty-one families from the various dens in the pack signed up to tend the garden in one-week increments. While the beans and cucumbers made a brief appearance before succumbing to the elements, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and the ever-popular zucchini continue to thrive.

By mid-July, the group already had dropped off 18 bunches of lettuce.

"Boys, it's really better for the plants if you bend down and water the plants close," another mom points out to another exuberant boy flinging a water bottle.

"They like watering," Marek said. "They hate weeding."

Actually, on one night, a small group of boys working the garden discovered pulling weeds can be fun - particularly when the offending plants are being yanked out of mud, which happens to fly nicely through the air when the plant's roots are ejected with the just the right technique.

Marek said the adults are hoping the children learn the benefit of helping others, of working hard for a common goal and working as a team. They'll wait until the season's over before determin-ing if success warrants a repeat appearance next year, Marek said.

The program they're assisting is one promoted by the GardenWriter's Association of American and sponsored locally by the Daily Herald. It's based on a simple premise: gardeners usually grow more than they consume. It encourages them to plant vegetables specifically to donate, or to donate any surplus. The local program's goal this year is to raise 40,000 pounds of produce.

Even if it takes all of the mud in Wheeling to do it, the Cub Scout pack from Ivy Hall Elementary School intends to do its fair share.