As my garden wakes up this spring, I thought about how it will be the last season I’ll be able to enjoy it (hello ramps, good morning asparagus!) Having fed my family for years from painstakingly building it from a sandy, sterile lawn using purely organic methods (greetings biochar, hello compost, nice to see you ducks!), I wanted to share some life lessons I learned from it, as a reminder to myself.

(In case this was too somber, it’s not! It’s a happy but slightly bittersweet occasion. I’m selling this house and moving into another property and restarting another food forest, as well as entering the next chapter of my life. I am finally pursuing my dream of running a bed and breakfast out of my gorgeous centurion apartment building—keep an eye out for me blogging this new journey, and for when it’s open for business—I hope you will come visit!)

1. If the roots of a tree are rotten, no amount of care or support will make it bear proper fruit. Harden my heart, rip it out and start anew, or else it will continue to steal resources from the healthy or young plants around it.
2. Everything has it’s time. Do not cry for the branches that have become old and brittle—prune them away with kindness and respect, but with a firm hand, to make room for the young and new. This is the cycle of life, and if I desperately try to hold on to the old out of some misguided sense of loyalty or love or tradition, I will have weakened the coming generation.
3. Don’t get angry at them (especially the tomatoes!) for not having done exactly as I wished, bore as much as I wanted, not ripening when I expected, or grew lopsided despite my best trellis—reflect on my own actions that may have led to this and if I cannot find fault, accept that nature has its own variables that gave me a unique (not “bad”) experience and be thankful I could have such an experience at all. Frustration is an emotion too, and tells me that yes, I am living.
4. Looks can be deceiving and a beloved creature to others who haven’t experienced its harsh realities can be a terrifying villain to someone (or something) else. The majestic eagle that roams the skies is the ruthless predator of sitting ducks, that sweet doe and fawn will strip green children before they’re ready, the gorgeous owl that hoots in the night (bringing to mind magic and mystery), is the monster in the dark to your feathery charges (chickens!), that adorable raccoon will indiscriminately annihilate the quail—sometimes for no other reason than flippant fun. While that may just be their nature, don’t discount the terrible experiences of the victims just because I admire the predator’s grace. More so, if I am responsible for these hapless and defenseless creatures, it is my duty to protect them and thus, I may make an enemy of those who see only grace. Often, I will find myself being the difference between protecting life and allowing slaughter. Do not falter, just because I have admired them previously.
5. Don’t forget the lesson that a garden, like much of life, is one of the purest forms of “effort in is what I will get out.” If I take some time and some patience to build a strong foundation, the rewards are numerous. Sometimes it may not look like much is happening, but deep below the surface, the tiniest most insignificant creatures, the most tender and thinnest of roots, are creating momentum to bring forth beautiful change. Just as a fire, given the right conditions, will blaze through a whole forest, so will a garden explode in brilliance when everything, including myself, work in chorus. If I am lucky, the results will provide more bounty than intended (I’m looking at you, mushrooms!) and I will remember to be grateful.
6. There will be those who only see the end product, and not the tears and the anxiety, the turmoil and the work, the numerous mistakes I may have made along the way. There will be those that only seek to emulate the end result, or seek to gain quick answers or have me do work for them, and not undertake the journey that led me to where I am. I should have the compassion to not fault them, or be angered by their trivialization of my work. The wish I should make is that I hope they eventually learn to plant their own garden and decorate their own soul, instead of waiting for me to bring them flowers. (Shoffstall, anyone?)
7. Remember that ultimately, if I don’t do the things I say I will, the things that I know are right in my heart, take shortcuts and the easy way out because I fear hardships, I will have failed my garden. Integrity is only a pretty word until I put it into practice, courage means nothing in the absence of danger—if I leave the poison ivy because I fear its burn, eventually it will choke everything out and burn me anyway. Do it right the first time, because sometimes you won’t have a chance to make it up later.