My Move to the Garden

What brought me to growing food, and what has quietly changed since.

I was not someone who thought much about gardens. My mother always had one, and growing up I was aware of it the way you are aware of background noise. It was just something she did.

A couple of years ago I was visiting her and she was showing me how to pinch out the side shoots on a tomato plant. Nothing significant was happening. We were not having an important conversation. But the hour had a quality to it I kept thinking about afterward. Quiet, physical, unhurried. I wanted more of that.

Why This, Why Now

I cook a lot and I care about what goes into my food. But I had gotten into the habit of buying everything without thinking much about it. Good shops, good products, but no real relationship to any of it. Growing felt like a way to close that gap.

There was also something about the rhythm of it. I spend a lot of time at a screen. The idea of doing something slow and physical every day, something with a visible result at the end of months, genuinely appealed to me. It still does.

I wanted to do something slow and physical. Something where the result took months.

What Has Actually Changed

The most honest answer is: not everything, but a few things noticeably. I am calmer in the morning when I spend a few minutes with the plants before anything else. I cook more carefully when I am using something I grew. I waste less because I know exactly how long something took to produce.

My mother would probably say she told me so. She would be right.