14 Gardeners Who Grew Kindness From Tomatoes, Bees and Wildflowers, Including a Father’s Seed Catalog Hobby That Brought Happiness

Every gardener learns it eventually: a garden always grows more than you need, and the extra is where kindness and compassion begin. Psychology research says it’s good for us, too. In a University of Colorado Boulder study of 291 adults, people who took up gardening as a new hobby saw their stress and anxiety drop significantly. These stories come from everyday gardeners who learned that a garden grows more than fruits and vegetables. It grows love, empathy and happiness.

• My grandma grew tomatoes in Knoxville, Tennessee, for 50 years and saved seeds in old Kodak film canisters, labeled in her handwriting with masking tape: “Cherokee Purple ’88,” “Mortgage Lifter,” “Daddy’s Yellow.”
  After she passed in 2019, my aunt found 30 of them in her freezer. I planted every variety the next spring, and 26 came up.
  Every January since, I mail seed packets to cousins in Ohio, Texas, Oregon and Georgia, and our whole family grows Grandma’s heirloom tomatoes now. She’s still feeding all of us.

• My grandpa Dave kept bees on his farm outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania, from 1983 until he passed away in March 2023. Nobody in the family wanted his three old Langstroth hives, so I hauled them home and signed up for a weekend beekeeping class at 42, with zero clue what I was doing.
  The first time I opened a hive that May, I cried into my veil. That August I pulled my first frames of honey, about 14 pounds. The first jar went on his grave with a note: “Your girls are still working, Grandpa.”

• Dad got the same seed catalog every winter, even after he quit gardening. When he passed, I found 26 catalogs, with random letters circled in red. I blamed his old age.
  Then my daughter read those letters, in order. She stopped halfway and said, “Mom... it says: Grow an extra row for Rose.’” She checked the cover: 2001. “Grandpa made these word hunts for me while you were at work, remember? Page by page, left to right.”
  A recent catalog said, “Thank Rose for the tomatoes.”
  Rose lived three doors down. I knew they exchanged vegetables, but I took the catalogs over to ask about the messages. She smiled: “After my husband passed, your dad brought me seedlings. He claimed he’d grown too many. The next spring, I helped him sow seeds. One whole tray had my name on it.”
  Years later, when his knees made gardening too difficult, she planted his favorite varieties beside her own and brought him whatever ripened. He still chose and paid for the seeds each winter.
  The puzzles had started during those babysitting afternoons as a hobby; he’d kept making them afterward out of habit.
  Rose showed me six tomato seedlings labeled “Paul,” waiting to go into her garden. “I started these before he passed,” she said. “Would you like to grow them?”
  I’d never grown tomatoes, but she lent me spare pots and showed me what to do.
  That summer, my daughter and I carried our first bowl of cherry tomatoes down to Rose. She sent us home with cucumbers. The next winter, I requested Dad’s catalog and circled a message for my daughter: “Grow an extra row for Rose.”
  I still missed Dad, but I found a little happiness each time I had something ready to take down to Rose.

• I’m the “weird lady” on my street who stopped mowing half her lawn and planted native wildflowers instead. One neighbor complained to the HOA. Two summers later, his 6-year-old knocked on my door holding a jar and asked if she could “visit the butterflies.”
  Now he waters my milkweed when I travel. Pollinators win again.

• We have a lemon tree that produces way more than we can use, so I put a basket by the sidewalk with a sign: “Free lemons, take what you need.” For months, people just took them, which was the whole point.
  Then one morning there was a folded note in the basket, written in crayon: “Thank you for the lemons. I made lemonade and sold it and made $14. I am saving for a bike.” Under it was a single lemon-drop candy. The next week I left a new basket with a second sign: “For the lemonade business. Good luck!”
  Two months later a little girl rode past my house on a shiny purple bike and rang the bell twice. I’ll never know for sure, but I’m choosing to believe it.

• Our community garden had a plot nobody claimed for years. One spring it was suddenly full of perfect pumpkins, with a sign that said “FOR ANY KID WHO NEEDS A JACK-O’-LANTERN.” We never found out who planted it.
  Every October since for Halloween, a different family quietly plants it. Nobody signs their name. That’s kind of the point.

• We’re in Boise, Idaho (zone 6b, if you garden). Last April I handed my 9-year-old son, who’s autistic and mostly nonverbal, a $3 packet of Mammoth Grey Stripe sunflower seeds, just to keep him busy. He planted all 12 along the back fence and measured them every morning with my sewing tape, writing the numbers in a composition notebook.
  On August 14, the tallest hit 11 feet 4 inches. He dragged me outside and said a full sentence: “Mom, it’s taller than Dad.” I have the notebook in a drawer and I’m never throwing it away.

• In fall 2021, I meant to order 20 Red Emperor tulip bulbs online and accidentally ordered 200. Returning them cost more than they were worth, so I put a box by the curb on our street in Grand Rapids, Michigan with a sign: “Free bulbs. Plant them for someone you love.”
  The box was empty in two days. That April, our whole block was red. An older man named Alan stopped me on my walk to say he’d planted his for his wife, Donna, who’d passed that winter. Red was her favorite color. I think about him every April.

• During my illness, my coworkers couldn’t figure out what to bring me, so they did something better. While I was at treatment, they built me two raised garden beds and filled them with herbs: lavender, mint, rosemary. I couldn’t eat much, but sitting next to that lavender every afternoon was the most peaceful I felt all year. I’m in remission now, and the herbs are still going strong.

• We closed on our house in Wichita, Kansas in August 2023. Taped inside the shed was an index card from the previous owner: “Monarchs come through around Sept. 20. Please don’t pull the milkweed by the fence. — Linda.”
  Honestly, I’d been planning to rip it out because it looked like weeds. I left it. On September 22, I counted 40-something monarch butterflies resting on it during their migration. I added my own line to Linda’s card for whoever lives here next.