CHEYENNE — In a climate like Wyoming’s, it takes extra effort and care to produce a homegrown potato, tomato or leek. But if you can manage it, the result can come with a multitude of rewards.
That magic, found in gardening, is part of what Cheyenne resident Maggie McKenzie has worked to share with children in Laramie County for the past decade.
“On a lot of different levels, it has been a real blessing in my life,” McKenzie said, referring to gardening. “I really enjoyed it, and have gotten a lot out of it.”
As a lifelong gardener, McKenzie knew she wanted to share all that gardening had given her with the younger generations, helping them develop the skill, whether they fell in love with it or just simply had it as general knowledge.
After retiring from her state job at the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, McKenzie pursued membership with the Laramie County Master Gardeners (LCMG), a volunteer educator group that shares research-based gardening knowledge through community outreach.
She became a Master Gardener in 2012, and by 2015, she and the Boys and Girls Club of Cheyenne had a similar goal where gardening was concerned.
“The Boys and Girls Club moved to their current site, which has 12 acres, in 2015,” McKenzie said. “At that point, one of their aspirations was to have a gardening area, and one of my aspirations was to be able to introduce kids to gardening.”
McKenzie helped establish the Garden Club at the Boys and Girls Club of Cheyenne, which started serving Laramie County in 2016.
She is further involved in educating people on gardening as a member of the Cheyenne Master Gardeners and the co-chair of the seed program at the Laramie County Library.
Though McKenzie has been gardening in Laramie County for the majority of her life, it’s not an easy climate to learn in. The short growing season and unpredictable weather are just a few of the things that make it difficult to find a venue in Cheyenne.
“This seemed like a good fit,” McKenzie said. “So we started the formal program in 2016.”
The resulting youth education program has contributed to teaching kids how to garden while making gardening fun. Volunteers support workshops and help youth maintain community gardens, teaching them “the wonder of growing vegetables, herbs, flowers, and fruit trees and shrubs,” according to the LCMG.
In 2024, the program’s 59 students grew 460 pounds of produce in the Boys and Girls Club Community Gardens.
“We try to make it fun, instead of making it a chore,” McKenzie said. “And it’s pretty cool to watch kids harvest potatoes; it’s like a little treasure hunt. They get very excited watching their plants grow.”
It’s not just plants kids learn about, it’s the bugs that harm and support plants, and even how to cook some of the items they grow. Excess produce is donated to local food banks.
Though kids are learning a life skill, Wyoming’s climate makes it difficult for a person to reduce groceries by gardening. Plants require a lot of special attention when they’re subject to hail and high winds. But there are still ways to garden successfully here.
“It’s just kind of challenging, and you have to put your brain to work,” McKenzie said. “We are incurable junk collectors, because you can usually figure out some way to use almost any kind of junk out in your garden.”
McKenzie knows not every youth will fall in love with gardening the way she has, but she also knows what it’s like to associate gardening with chores.
“My mom was an avid gardener, and she introduced me to gardening at a very early age,” McKenzie said. “I hated it. To go out there and pull weeds and pick things, it wasn’t a fun introduction.”
But as she grew up, she found that through all those years of weeding and tending to their large family garden, her mother had given her a true gift.
“Gardening is a lot of different things from the standpoint of feeding your spirit,” McKenzie said. “You see the miracle of little plants emerging from seeds, and that just sort of refreshes me and bolsters my energy level.”
McKenzie said, in many ways, gardening has sustained her. She has been able to grow food and beautify her home, all while caring for her mental and spiritual well-being. She wants to share that with the kids of Laramie County.
“I think we all just love to see the kids have their little lights on,” she said. “You know, we love to see them get excited about something different than using their cellphone, and have them love being outside.”
McKenzie noted that the program has grown to what it is not because she helped to start it, but because so many other volunteers have seen value in teaching kids to garden.
“We have fabulous volunteers, we really do,” McKenzie said. “We have a lot of former educators, one woman who is a speech therapist … just a really well-experienced group and very committed.”
Volunteers have helped kids grow cherries and learn about bees, offering up their own resources to enrich the program.
“I just can’t say enough good things about our volunteers,” McKenzie said. “That’s been a wonderful piece of this whole project, too, just the friendships that have come out of that effort. I think those are real treasures.”
Not every youngster in the program immediately falls in love with gardening, or even thinks they’ll find a use for it in their daily lives. McKenzie hopes that one day, much like she did, they’ll change their minds, or at least know they gave it a good shot.
“You’ll have lots of failures gardening, especially in Wyoming, but you’ll also have lots of successes, and you can learn from your failures,” McKenzie said. “Gardeners are usually amazingly resourceful at finding ways to work around what Mother Nature throws at us.”
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