Michelle Obama tapped into a green zeitgeist by planting the White House's organic, edible garden. All around the nation, locovores and plant lovers are turning their backyards (and even their front lawns) into fruit and vegetable producing plots. To celebrate spring, we revisited The Secret Garden. In Agnieszka Holland's beautiful 1993 adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett's classic book, Mary is shipped off to a lonely mansion on the English moor to be raised by her uncle. There, Mary discovers two secrets: a hidden garden, overgrown with weeds, and her sickly cousin Colin, locked away in a secret part of the vast estate. Mary instinctively knows that both her cousin and the garden need sunlight and love to return to health. We needed a restorative dose of nature, so we stole the kids away to our favorite public garden, and were happy to discover a hidden Secret Garden (inspired by the novel) and even tumbled upon an edible plant area called Nature's Table Garden. Teeming with new lettuce and tomato plants, this fragrant plot inspired us to stop by a nursery to pick up tomatoes, lettuces and herbs for our own edible garden. Summer will truly have arrived when we enjoy that first tomato salad!
Click here for advice on starting an Edible Gardens in any yard
The Getty's big summer show illustrates how observing nature can transform a person. At the age of 13, Maria Sibylla Merian was one of the first to document the full metamorphosis of a silkworm. Her journey as a keen observer of the natural world led her to shed a traditional 17th century life and soar as an artist and scientist. Our family has always lovedThe Secret Garden, a touching adaptation of the classic novel, and we watched it with renewed interest after visitingMaria Sibylla Merian and Daughters: Women of Art and Science, on view through the summer atThe Getty Center. We were able to see the insect specimens that Merian and her two talented daughters used as models for their lustrous drawings, artwork which was collected by Russian Czars and set standards for botanical illustration. Inspired, we took a quick jaunt around the Getty's gardens before the kids settled down with colored pencils to create their own illustrations from blooms and bugs discovered atop the Brentwood hill. Visiting these rare drawings, and spending some blissful unplugged time with our kids, was a perfect kick off to a nature-oriented summer.(Click here for Culture Crawl LA, a joint effort between five LA institutions designed to teach kids about bugs this summer).
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Michelle Obama tapped into a green zeitgeist by planting the White House's organic, edible garden. All around the nation, locovores and plant lovers are turning their backyards (and even their front lawns) into fruit and vegetable producing plots. To celebrate spring, we revisited The Secret Garden. In Agnieszka Holland's beautiful 1993 adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett's classic book, Mary is shipped off to a lonely mansion on the English moor to be raised by her uncle. There, Mary discovers two secrets: a hidden garden, overgrown with weeds, and her sickly cousin Colin, locked away in a secret part of the vast estate. Mary instinctively knows that both her cousin and the garden need sunlight and love to return to health. We needed a restorative dose of nature, so we stole the kids away to our favorite public garden, and were happy to discover a hidden Secret Garden (inspired by the novel) and even tumbled upon an edible plant area called Nature's Table Garden. Teeming with new lettuce and tomato plants, this fragrant plot inspired us to stop by a nursery to pick up tomatoes, lettuces and herbs for our own edible garden. Summer will truly have arrived when we enjoy that first tomato salad! 
