why i garden

a few weeks back one of my twitter followers asked me what my favorite thing about gardening is. i didn't answer right away. there are just so many things i love about it. the smell of damp soil. the stunning variability in the color green. the way that the scent of a tomato plant can stay on your skin all day. the way even the hardest of work makes you hurt in all the right ways. the way it inspires you to breathe deeper and easier. the way lilacs always remind me of one grandmother and calla lilies the other. the overwhelming, rich abundance a garden gifts us with in terms of beauty, joy, food, shelter, perfume, habitat... but none of those are what i love best.

what i love best is participating in the act of creation. taking a seed, a leaf, a stalk, a stem and transforming it into another plant. and then standing by to help it grow, blossom, fruit and deliver next season's seeds. more seeds than one person could ever use, practically demanding that we leave our tiny corners of our tiny worlds to go out and share.

creation is the only antidote to the distruction that runs rampant in our world. literature, art, music... they can inspire the mind and free the soul. but the garden. it can do all that and more. it can literally, physically sustain you. keep you alive. the work of my hands can feed this body, the bodies of my friends, my family. the work of many hands can feed the world.