GARDENING THEN AND NOW: Kid’s Camp offered since 2017

by Maria Sobczak | Victoria County Master Gardener

Campers in 2023. (Photos by Victoria County Master Gardener Brynn Lee)

Dear reader, as a gardener, you know how much work goes into setting up a garden, whether for vegetables, flowers or both.

Now close your eyes and picture what planting a garden in Victoria 200 years ago would look like. That is where we are taking the children who attend this year’s Summer Camp, June 3-7 at the Victoria Educational Gardens. Thus the name “Gardening Then and Now.”

The Victoria County Master Gardener Association has been offering the Kids Camp during the summer since 2017. Our camp allows children to experience the ins and outs of working with Mother Nature.

Last year we covered how the elements of fire, water, and wind affect our earth and our health. These three topics dovetailed with the previous year’s topics of composting, recycling, organics, propagation and six-legged insects.

This year we will use Victoria’s Bicentennial celebration and gear the activities to life in days gone by. “How did our ancestors live and survive?” This question will be answered in many ways.

Going back 200 years of gardening, the children’s camp experiences will all focus on some aspect of local history. The campers will listen to several members of our community provide different historical facts.

Blanche DeLeon will speak about the history of Victoria and her heritage as a descendent of the DeLeon family. She will focus on how they lived in Victoria in the 19 th century. Claudia Moseley, from the Museum of the Coastal Bend, will inspire campers with interesting facts about the lives of Native Americanswho first inhabited this area.

Cheryl Johnson, author, artist and photographer wears many hats. For our camp, she is the author of Charli’s Adventure

Journal which includes the Victoria Educational Gardens (VEG). She will get us off to a good start journaling about this summer’s adventure at VEG.

Jeff Wright, Executive Director of Victoria Preservation, Inc. will conclude the week by describing how life has changed during the 200 year history of beautiful Victoria.

All programs will be tied to the importance of how early settlers grew their own food to sustain their families. The practices of sharing their bounty with other families in exchange for items that they needed will be described.

Gardening was all natural, thus no pesticides, commercial fertilizers, or weed eliminators. The children will discuss what they think the settlers used as tools and how they amended their garden soil. This discussion will emphasize and compare gardening then and now.

The children will create their journals to document each day, and imitate what settlers may have done. They will do crafts that will take them back to days when there were no cellphones, video games, or electronic tablets. Entertainment was made up in their imaginations and with objects found in nature.

There will be games to play, that even some of us “older” grown-ups might have experienced in our childhoods, such as, jacks, marbles, and checkers. I don’t want to give away too much information, but they will get plenty of exercise and have fun with new friends.

Even the snacks will get their attention and test their willingness to step into yesteryear. Some examples of unfamiliar snacks from that era might be hard tack and Johnny cakes. Of course, they will also have plenty of good eats that are available in today’s world.

Registration forms for this summer’s Kids Camp, June 3-7, 8:30 a.m.-noon, can be found https:txmg.org/Victoria or obtained at the

Victoria County Agri-life Extension Office, 528 Waco Circle, Victoria 77904. We encourage you to register early because we have a limit of 60 campers. In my opinion, the $65 registration fee will be your best investment of the summer.

The Gardeners’ Dirt is written by members of the Victoria County Master Gardener Association, an educational outreach of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension – Victoria County. 

IF YOU GO

*WHAT: Kid’s Camp for 6-12 year-olds

*WHEN: 8:30 am until Noon, June 3-7

*WHERE: Victoria Educational Gardens and VEG Pavilion, 283 Bachelor Drive, Victoria, TX

*SPONSORED BY VICTORIA COUNTY MASTER GARDENER ASSOCIATION