Why I return to the garden

The hobby and act of gardening, often, conjures up images of women past their prime wearing sun hats, crocs, some rendition of a paisley print, while carrying a little bucket of tools with them as they slave away in the summer humidity to bring bounty to their patches of dirt. To a lot of people this image doesn’t paint the picture of an activity chosen by a wise, well-aged woman that’s put food on her table over the years. It’s put sun spots on her shoulders. But what she’s reaped from the dirt she’s sowed is priceless.

Of course, there is a practical reason for creating a garden. Transactional or practical priorities necessitate gardening sometimes – for the same reason our friendly image of the “Gardener” did it. To see the fruits of her labor. Growing vegetables and fruit or other edible sources of food connects you to the land. It allows you to grow what you need, save money, and live from your land in a way our grandparents and their parents, and their grandparents before them did. In this way, we are returning to the land and to ourselves as people.

With limited supplies, you can make something out of what seems like nothing. You can quite literally see the fruits of your labor, you can visualize the process of life, death, and rebirth. A small patch of dirt, effort and persistence, patience and nurturing, as well as a little bit of fertilizer and sunlight (and always water – lots of water) creates something. And in that moment we recognize the tip of a leaf pushing through the top layer of dirt, we’re inspired to do it again because we see our efforts mattered.

Sometimes the leaf doesn’t breach the dirt and the sprout doesn’t push through towards the sunlight before it dies. In the garden, with the dirt beneath our fingers, we’re able to learn from our failures and try again. Life is, as they say, a journey – and you reap what you sow – we can learn from our mistakes and move on to try again in a place of the yard where there’s, perhaps, just a bit more sunlight or the water runoff will coat the roots a little longer after a storm.

Stressed out seems to be the new normal in a world that doesn’t unplug, disconnect, or sign out from the internet and social media, but there are no outlets in the garden. There’s nothing to plug into in the first place. Even if we’re tending to a plant as simple and easy-to-care-for as certain houseplants, the act of caring and kindness breathes a little bit of new life into us. Stress is caused by a lack of control but with our fingers in the dirt, water within reach, and some nurturing sunlight – we can encourage growth. We can encourage renewal, and we can try to change the course of our control to help something positive become.

The door to my backyard is a gateway to a fantasy land where 8-foot corn stalks are real, and there’s a giant waiting in the clouds to climb down the beanstalks that are ever-reaching towards his castle in the sky.

There’s a sweet, gentle aroma of honey lingering in the air and with a deep breath in, and back out again, there’s a semblance of balance in the world again.

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