There are so many reasons to garden, it’s such a wholesome endeavor. It often reduces our carbon footprints, helps the ecosystem, improves our mental and physical health, and saves us money. I’ve been interested in gardening pretty well since I could walk. I especially loved my grandmother’s garden. When she was preparing supper she would give me a bowl and some snips and ask me to go harvest yellow beans, and I remember thinking yellow beans from her garden were my favourite vegetable.
As an adult, gardening retained its allure – although there were some years when I would plant in the spring, forget to check on the plants until mid summer, and frantically harvest whatever thrived on benign neglect as the first snow began to fall (often with flashlights).
As I started having babies, though, gardening took a new hold in my priorities. The more that I garden with and for my kids, the more it has nurtured my soul. One of the most joyful moments of my life has been harvesting carrots with my 3yo. I love watching them look at plants the way I used to look at those yellow beans, and to fill their dinner plates with the most local and pesticide-free foods. I love that gardening and keeping chickens has started them off on a positive relationship with food, especially in these times when so many people struggle with unhealthy food relationships. I love that they are motivated to use all parts of a food, they know about compost and waste, they can see that bees and butterflies flock to our garden’s flowers. They know where food comes from, even food we can’t buy from the grocery store or haven’t tasted ourselves (“Momma, can we make cheese with a pig’s milk? How long would it take to milk a pig?”)
Without my family, the magic of seed-to-table would hold less power. Because of my family, my eyes have been opened to the magic of gardening for others as much as myself. I now garden for the planet, for my family, for my friends – and the more I garden for others, the more I garden for myself.
