Gardening Gratitudes

In my personal family garden

Gardening has given me a lot. Growing herbs for family use is a great way to create a family culture that encourages life with plants. Especially if you have young children in your life.

Growing herbs requires forethought, mindfulness, troubleshooting and patience. It brings about a sense of joy, peace, accomplishment, and gratitude. It also teaches hard work, failure, mistakes, struggle, and difficulty.

In my opinion, these are all qualities that are integral to a well rounded family environment that prepares children, and ourselves for the real world. Nothing will ever beat the feeling of cutting in a cantaloupe you grew yourself, still chilled from the cool morning air. Nothing beats the feeling of coming home to find your entire cantaloupe crop decimated by squash bugs.

Growing and being in relationship with plants taught me balance, and consequences. Its a study in biology, chemistry, math, and wonder.

My life has only been enriched by the presence of herbs. The truth of the matter is before allopathic medicine, all our predecessors had to help heal their ailments was plants. They had deep relationships and knowledge of the green things that grew right outside their doors. We would not exist without plant remedies.

For that, and all their lessons- I am grateful.

Peace,

Farai