Zoomers in the Garden

It’s dang near Chinese coolie labor time again, that grand American spectacle where hordes of lunatics, armed with shovels, hoes, and a rabid gleam in their eyes, descend upon their garden patches like it’s a sacred calling. Think of it as the nation’s biggest hobby—a manic, soil-stained frenzy with more determined enthusiasm than Harvey Weinstein at a casting party.

Word on the street—or at least some half-baked survey—claims that 70% of our Gen-Z kids are planning to claw their way out of their digital-addled madness by grubbing in the garden this year. Could be a cure, I suppose. Digging in the muck might jostle their lopsided brains back into some semblance of balance faster than a blue pill perks up Harvey (note: I'm allowed three Weinstein references per essay).

I’d love to believe it, but I’m calling bulls***.

Are we supposed to believe these screen-drunk teenagers are suddenly storming their grannies’ backyard Edens like a TikTok flash mob? That's more dubious than a big boxed five dollar hoe [insert third Weinstein reference].

Still, there’s a trace of truth in it.

Gardens are a shot of raw, earthy sanity, a middle finger to the left-hemisphere. Left hemisphericism is a problem for all modernity, but it’s especially problematical for the young. It makes them cocky, preachy, and ripe for the picking by every sanctimonious cause that oozes dogma like a sweaty chain-gang hero in a Southern prison flick. Maybe a little dirt under the nails, a dose of right-hemisphere redemption, is what they’re starving for.

But here’s the rub: they shouldn’t go it alone. It’s 2025, and these poor bastards have been pummeled by social media echo chambers, COVID lockdowns, and now—what’s next?—AI girlfriends whispering sweet nothings in their ears. Young people are natural extroverts, wired for the pack, not the hermit’s cave (that’s a game for us grizzled folk). Solo time’s the last thing they need. They’re jonesing for connection like a junkie actor chasing his next fix.

Gardening is a loner’s game, a refuge for the misfits who’d rather talk to worms than people. But it doesn’t have to be. Many activities that are best done alone can be done in groups and vice-versa.

Consider boozing. When pursued alone, it can be a Zen-like practice, an art praised by Bukowski souls throughout the history of addiction literature. Yet it’s better with a crew, a sloppy dance of jokesters and bent elbows.

Gardening’s the flip side: best done solo, but it can swing with a gang too.

And it is swinging, especially in the big cities. Community gardens are sprouting up in urban wastelands faster than you can say "gentrification." These green oases in the concrete jungle offer a glimpse of what our cities could be if we hadn't sacrificed them on the altar of asphalt and automobile. It's a small step towards reclaiming the public realm—those ever-illusive third places—that have been buried beneath layers of urban planning, great societies, and other abstract ideas put into demonic practice over the past 100 years.

Community gardens could be a sweaty, muddy antidote for Gen Z’s battered spirits. They offer the right-hemisphere exercise Zoomers’ minds need; they offer the community their souls crave.

So here’s an idea: Forget shelling out for another pixelated dopamine hit for your Zoomer spawn. Get ‘em a real shovel, a dented watering can, some seeds that might actually grow something. Heck, pony up the twenty-five bucks for one of those pre-plowed city garden plots.

And then shove ‘em out the door into that scruffy patch of communal earth. Let ‘em dig, let ‘em sweat, let ‘em talk to actual humans for once. See what takes root—see what sprouts and grows.