Seeds of Hope

Adjusting to a new life while growing hope and a garden

We moved this past summer. It was, in some ways, an unplanned and halfhearted move born out of circumstance. Suffice to say that as we age and navigate health issues, my husband and I have realized that we need – reluctantly, I admit – to accept the eagerly-offered help of one of our daughters. So, here we are in a new house, in a different town across the province, with seemingly less space both inside and out.

We are slowly fitting ourselves literally and figuratively into our new space. When we began the house choosing and moving process in the spring, I decided that, since this was to be a new beginning of sorts, I would no longer garden. We sold our two greenhouses and some of our much-loved VegTrug deck planters. Numerous pots were given away, along with some plants from my herb garden. I allowed our conservation horticulturalist daughter to relocate five blueberry bushes to enhance what was an inexplicably barren landscape at the 15-year-old new house. But, I thought, I was done. I was so stressed and tired that gardening seemed beyond my future capabilities. Heck, writing seemed beyond my capabilities at that point. (Here, I must thank you all for staying tuned while I have been recovering.)

Thankfully, the wise daughter persuaded me to keep a couple of the deck planters, a few large pots, and some (many) bags of soil. I've just come inside from harvesting kale, chard, spinach, and cilantro from the planters. The cabbage worms had eaten much of it, but my soul has benefited from that small late-season gardening project as much as our stomachs would have. My hands smell like nasturtiums, as I began to save the seeds for next year. Next year? I thought there wouldn't be another gardening one for me!

I've spent three months mourning that old house and garden. But, yesterday evening, wrapped in a blanket and sitting in the living room – complete with newly-installed strings of tiny lights and a newly-begun weaving project – I finally felt like I was home again. I impulsively pulled out my garden journal, in which I'd written an obituary for the plant-nurturing phase of my life just a few months ago. And I began to plan what seeds to sow next year. I know it won't be a large garden like at the old house, but it will still be satisfying and nourishing for body and soul.

They say that to garden means to hope, which has been elusive for me lately, due to both personal challenges and the frightening state of the world. As horticulturalist and author Allan Armitage (who is a few years older than I) has put it, “Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized.” If we garden organically, we are also remembering the cycles of nature and helping to improve the world, or at least our little piece of it. Thanks, wise daughter, for helping me remember the importance of nurturing one’s self, one’s family, one’s garden, and one’s planet.