A myth from ancient Greece suggests that the more frequent a human’s contact with earth, the stronger that person grows. When Antaeus’ flights brought him low enough to touch the ground briefly, he gained strength to support him through the challenges that heroes of his day were bound to meet.

The relationship between people and earth need not empower people in the same way today, but the connection still exists: cultivating the soil for our purposes offers benefits as no other activity does.

Various agencies in Richmond believe the theory, and have set out to provide area children with opportunities to till the earth. They invite children not only to do actual gardening, but some give equal time and attention to nutrition, preparation, and cooking of the vegetables grown. At some locations, learning gardens offer instruction by qualified horticulturalists. Families or other groups occupy other locations and share gardening knowledge.

Here’s a look at a few of these gardening groups:

Uptown Community Garden at 2201 Parkwood Avenue lies at the edge of the Byrd Park vicinity. Marlene Sehen, garden coordinator, is available to share with gardeners young and old what she has learned "through years of study and experience in the fields of horticulture and urban agriculture."

Year-round gardening is the norm here. In beds measuring about 12 by 4 feet, green peas still clung to the vines in mid-December, long after the first harvest back in October. Prolific crops of onions, garlic, lettuce, cabbage, and carrots burgeoned from the beds. With the change of seasons, winter crops give way to spring vegetables, and afterward summer crops will rotate in. The prodigious amount of produce harvested from these beds can pay for itself many times over.

Children are to come with an adult. The youngsters are usually hesitant at first with the unfamiliar procedures, said Sehen, but it turns out that both working in the garden and eating the healthful vegetables are positive experiences after all.

Sehen said that studies on gardeners demonstrate that the more closely children are involved in producing their food, the more likely they are to eat it. So, as it turns out, they actually like their veggies.

Sehen starts many of the seeds in her own basement and gives them to gardeners. "It’s funny to hear them compete with each other," she said. They want to grow more, bigger and better, and they make known their triumphs at harvest time.

Sehen and her staff are working on laying out more plots for gardening and increasing the number of gardeners participating. "I would love to see (the project) grow," she said. She welcomes people from anywhere in the city, and hopes to encourage them to the extent that they will want to garden in their own back yards.

For upkeep of the premises, each gardener is asked to contribute 12 hours a year beyond the care of his or her own garden plot. Sign-ups take place throughout the year, but the first to come are the first to be served. In other words, sign up early, especially if you have a specific choice of season. Contact landscapes01@hotmail.com.

Uptown Community Garden is part of the city’s gardening system, Richmond Grows Gardens.

Each garden functions under the city’s general guidelines, and establishes additional ones as necessary.

Victoria Campbell, community garden coordinator, said there are 16 parcels at present dedicated for use as community gardens. Each garden functions under the city’s general guidelines, and rules, recommendations, and locations appear on the website www.richmondgov.com/Communitygarden/aspx. Any individual, family, or other group — religious, civic, school, non-profit — wanting to garden can apply for the privilege at the location of choice. Applicants for a garden plot pay $50 for the first year and $25 thereafter. Gardeners may work at any time during daylight hours and are responsible for the upkeep of their plot for the entire year.

"Nina Zinn at the 28th and Tate Garden, and Marlene Sehen at the Uptown Community Garden at 2201 Parkwood Avenue are experienced landscapers," said Campbell, and they "would be delighted to teach families if they join either of those gardens, which are already in progress. Both plan to teach classes on gardening in the spring."

Tricycle Gardens is a "non-profit organization focused on bringing agriculture, nutrition education" and access to healthful foods to urban Richmond.

Using abandoned, overgrown urban lots, the organization has four community gardens, three learning gardens and other projects — all focused on the benefits of gardening to individuals, groups, including families, and the environment.

Tricycle Gardens partners with groups wanting to establish gardens, then mentors the staffs with the expectation of the newly developed gardening project sustaining itself. The three learning gardens are the Neighborhood Resource Center and the Peter Paul Development Center, both of which have grown increasingly independent of Tricycle, and Winchester Greens.

The Neighborhood Resource Center, at 1519 Williamsburg Road, partnered with Tricycle Gardens "to design, build, and start the learning garden and to teach gardening classes…while empowering our staff to maintain the garden on our own," said to Blue Clements, food program director of the NRC.

The NRC is a grassroots non-profit whose mission is to foster personal growth and community change in the Greater Fulton community. It is a gardening/cooking/resource center, Clements said.

The garden itself is a learning garden. The children, most of whom come after school and without their parents, garden together, "but parents are always welcome," Clements said. "The purpose of the garden is as an educational tool, to provide a space for our youth to see and explore where food comes from by way of gardening and plants."

The Neighborhood Resource Center’s programs include much more than gardening and include cooking — when possible, using the food produced on site and with a strong emphasis on healthful eating. She and her dedicated volunteers and staff give the children instructions in preparing and cooking the vegetables they have raised.

Children sign up for any one of a wide range of classes and receive supervised instruction in the activities of their choice. The garden plots, raised and bordered by permanent walls, see activity from early spring to late fall.

"I think all of the kids that we see regularly do both cooking and gardening. We certainly try to tie together the whole cycle from growing food, to cooking, to eating," Clements said. For further information, contact blue@nrccafe.org.

Rosemary Jones, volunteer coordinator at the Peter Paul Development Center at 1708 N. 22nd St., said gardening takes place during the growing seaso n and for the children affiliated with the center.

Ten to 12 children work with garden volunteers each Wednesday, the usual gardening day. They learn not only gardening, but also the holistic relationships that produce plants — bees, earthworms, birds — along with the beauty of the natural surroundings. The youngsters house bees to increase fruit and vegetable production, and through the Richmond Audubon Society’s loan of telescopes, they observe their resident red-tailed hawk. For more information visit www.peterpauldevcenter.org.

Ronda Moreta, director of Winchester Greens Garden at 2801 Creekview Drive, said that although the program there originated especially for the benefit of the residents of the neighboring large apartment complex, children come from other neighborhoods to work in the garden, which is open five days a week after school. Adult volunteers help to maintain the area.

Moreta’s journal reveals serious interest and purposeful activity:

For more information contact r.moreta@betterhousingcoalition.org.

The garden at the Humphrey Calder Recreation Center (414 N. Thompson St.) in the Museum District was launched by Tricycle Gardens and is affiliated with the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities. Ellwood Thompson’s Natural Market funded many of the start-up expenses — construction of the shed, wood, fence and tools. Corporate sponsors also helped to fund the project.

Emily Francis, garden manager, said there are 36 plots, and at least eight of them are tended by families with children. Plots cost $60 a year for a full plot — 8 by 12 feet — and $40 for half. On a cold day in January, bumper crops of winter greens — lettuce and cabbage — invited harvesting, along with a large cluster of broccoli. The last cherry tomatoes and fall green peas still hung on vines, and some adventurous horticulturalist had even tried growing rhubarb — and succeeded.

Currently, there is a waiting list for reservations on plots, so the sooner a would-be applicant can sign up, the better. Children are to be accompanied by a parent or another adult.

"The garden is an opportunity for parents to teach their kids about the joys of nature," said Francis. "Watching seeds germinate and turn into tasty veggies is a pretty cool thing. Knowing where our food comes from is important. If parents don’t have the space to grow veggies, I highly recommend getting involved with one of the city’s or Tricycle Garden’s community gardens."

Contact emilycfrancis@gmail.com for further information.

Watching children mix compost into gardening plots, smoothing it, then purring with satisfaction over how many vegetables they’re going to grow, and how big they will be — the scene ranks close to the top of all satisfactions.

Antaeus would approve.