In the wake of last summer`s unsummer-like temperatures, there`s something about ripening pumpkins that seems appropriate. Since the mercury dipped into the 50s in August, it is surely just a matter of moments before Halloween is upon us.
The children of Vernon Hills are ready. They`re ready with homegrown pumpkins, a fringe benefit fattening up under the mass of leafy growth that marks the village`s first and only garden just for children.
”This is a garden by, for and in celebration of children,” said Kathy McGeehin, a member of the Vernon Hills Village Club and a full-time horticulture student at the College of Lake County.
Saturday mornings, McGeehin and Betty Houbion, also of Vernon Hills, oversee a phalanx of 20 children through a labyrinth of sprouting sunflowers, green beans, zinnias and marigolds.
The garden, a 20-by-60-foot area gridded into roughly square-yard plots, began as Houbion`s brainchild.
Her idea evolved earlier this year after members of the Vernon Hills village club agreed to make a cash donation to the family of an infant who had died recently of leukemia, Houbion said.
After club members decided to augment the donation to include a gift of books to a local library, the thought of a garden just for children stuck in Houbion`s mind.
”My vision is to provide a place just for children, a place where they can garden or read or just sit and meditate,” she said.
”Eventually, we want to have a permanent structure here, one that would include benches or some kind of children`s artwork,” she added. Houbion and McGeehin are working out the knots in creating a contest among village children to name the garden and design a logo for it.
The land itself, bordered by a pond on one side and the Vernon Hills Park District maintenance building on the other, was a donation from the park district.
”Actually, that plot used to be a community garden,” said Carl Eckstrom, Vernon Hills superintendent of parks. ”We`d rent out plots to residents, but people lost interest in it after a while.”
When Houbion and McGeehin first conceived of the land as a children`s garden, it was little more than a rocky, weedy area.
In May, children carted in wheelbarrows, trowels, rakes and a lot of enthusiasm to dig out the rocks and create the current plethora of flowers and vegetables.
”Basically, the first time we were all out there we had to get the soil ready,” said McGeehin`s daughter Alycia, 9. ”It was all rocks and weeds. We still weed a lot, but we have a good time. I`ve made friends doing this.”
Some of the new friends are of a four-legged, furry sort.
”We have this groundhog that lives under that tree over there,” Kathy McGeehin said, pointing to a hole deep enough to break a horse`s leg. ”He ate most of our zinnias. We also had a lot of little critters that feasted on our sunflowers.”
One sunflower still stands, an eight-foot stalk presiding over the shorter plants. This flower, McGeehin explained, was spared the ravages of rabbits and chipmunks by an orange mesh fence the park district donated.
”None of this cost the village a penny,” McGeehin said. ”The kids bring their own tools. Betty and I bought the fertilizer. We recruited kids by mailing flyers and notifying the local Scout troops.”
Although two adult supervisors are on hand Saturday mornings to oversee the children`s efforts, grownups are not allowed to lift a finger toward helping with the garden.
”We just thought it would be neat to have a garden just for kids to create and care for, all by themselves,” McGeehin said.
