10 Gardening Moments That Teach Us How Growing Something Can Bring Happiness Home

• My dad and I went through a rough few years. We were both stubborn. Eventually our phone calls turned into dry birthday texts and not much else. When we met, it was just very very formal, basic small talk.
  Then one summer he mentioned that he was growing tomatoes. I told him mine were doing terribly. He laughed for the first time in a long time.
  The next weekend, he showed up at my house with a bag of compost and other garden stuff and spent hours explaining everything I was doing wrong. He had such a light in his eyes that I had not seen for years. I pretended to be annoyed but I was really happy to see him so passionate about it.
  After that, he started stopping by every few weeks to check the plants. The tomatoes were just an excuse. But it’s funny to think that it took some wilting tomatoes to bring my dad and me together again.

• I always loved the idea of gardening but never had a big enough house. So finally I got a small plot in a community garden. The man gardening next to me was in his 70s.
  For the first few weeks, we barely spoke. He was always quiet and seemed shy. We would just nod at each other when we arrived and then get on with our gardening.
  Then one day he finally came over and pointed at my zucchini. He said he saw a problem with it immediately and showed me how to fix it. The plant was looking better soon thanks to him. After that, we started sharing whatever we had too much of.
  I brought him tomatoes. He brought me peppers. Over the next two seasons, we became friends. I learned about his late wife and his children who lived far away. He knew about my split and my new apartment.
  We probably would never have met anywhere else. We just happened to have two garden plots next to each other and our shared hobby brought us together in the most wonderful way.

• My grandmother had a huge collection of plants that I never paid much attention to when I was younger. In fact, I never understood why she loved them so much.
  After she passed, I asked my mother if I could take one plant from her house as a memory. She gave me a little cutting from a plant that had been in my grandmother’s kitchen for decades. I put it in a glass of water and waited.
  It grew roots. Then I planted it. Then I took cuttings from that plant and so on. Fast forward to now, I have plants all over my apartment that started from that one little piece of hers.
  My grandmother has been gone for years, but every time a new leaf appears, I feel like she is still around me, watching over me.

• My two kids were constantly arguing one summer break. It was exhausting, they had SO much energy. So I decided to put it to good use. I gave them each a patch of the backyard and told them they could grow whatever they wanted. The prettiest one wins.
  That was apparently the best parenting decision I ever made haha. All their attention shifted to competing over that and not fighting over the TV remote. They tried to plant random veggies and flowers, whatever they could find.
  They were waking up early to check on their gardens. They actually started bonding over it later and one would water the other’s plants if they knew their sibling was still asleep. It was just lovely.

• When I retired, I thought I would love having nothing scheduled, nothing to do regularly. And I did, for about a month. Then I realized I was spending most days sitting around the house wondering what day it was, losing track of time. Lonely.
  I started growing herbs because I figured they were easy to grow and helpful in the kitchen. That later turned into wanting to grow vegetables. Then I started going to a local gardening group. I expected everyone to be much more serious about gardening.
  Instead, half the group was there because they had no idea what they were doing either and just wanted advice haha. We started meeting often. Someone always brought coffee or snacks, someone always had too many seedlings or produce so they shared with everyone.
  I went from knowing almost nobody in my neighborhood to having people I could call when I needed help moving furniture. Retirement turned out much better once I had somewhere to be and a beautiful garden to look forward to.

• When I was expecting our baby, my husband planted a row of sunflowers along the back fence. I was too tired to care much at the time. He kept telling me that by the time the baby arrived, they would be taller than both of us.
  He was right. They bloomed a few weeks before our daughter was born. We took a photo of me standing beside them with my giant belly and then holding her, like a before-and-after shot. Our daughter would toddle over to the flowers and stare up at them when she started moving on her own.
  We keep saving some seeds and plant them again each year and take a photo of our daughter with them. We have done that every summer since was born. She is 11 now and the photos we’ve taken over the years are my most treasured belonging in the world.

After my mom passed unexpectedly, my dog kept whining and digging around her favorite rose plant. It was the last thing left of her. Nothing I did kept him away. Every morning I’d find more and more holes.
I got tired of it and decided to dig it out. I went numb when I found a small metal box buried underneath the roots. Inside were old photographs of us, a handwritten letter, and a tiny envelope with my name on it. My mom had apparently buried the box and never told anyone.
I don’t know when and I don’t know why or how the dog kept quiet all this while but caused all this ruckus for me to find it now. As if my mom told him to do this. The letter made me ugly cry. My dog kept me company the whole time.
He stopped digging after that. I replanted the rose in the same spot. Now whenever a new one blooms, it makes me feel closer to my mom.