ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author seeks to provide the practices, sociomaterialities, and colonial histories and relations that come together to enact the production of a community garden that she visit with children and early childhood educators in the child care centers where her research is situated. Gardening is a part of the children’s experiences at the child care center. Each of the centers has a garden area in its outdoor play space, where educators and children tend and grow flowers and vegetables. School gardens were widely introduced as tools to teach desired moral and social attributes, such as pride in community and individual responsibility for public property. Children are depicted joining the “school garden army” using the famed children’s tale figure of the Pied Piper, remade into America’s nation-building and patriarchal Uncle Sam character.
