What is there to be gained from planting a seed? A seed that you hold in your own hand, place in fertile soil, and tend to with care and attention? One that you watch and monitor as it sprouts, grows and matures. Does the process of planting, harvesting, preparing, cooking, and eating the food that came from that seed nourish more than just the body? Can growing food improve the way we connect to and understand ourselves, each other, our community, and the world at large?
These are the questions at the heart of our work at Grow Some Good. While gardening provides us with a local food source, which is critical to realizing better food security for ourselves and our islands, there’s more to it than that. Gardening provides a hands-on, tactile, immersive connection to the natural world. It engages all of our senses. It helps us establish a sense of place and creates a personal investment in and responsibility to care for something other than ourselves. It fosters curiosity, creativity, and problem-solving and introduces the concept of reciprocity, for we get out of the land what we put into it.
While tending to a garden, we learn how to practice observation and awareness, patience, and care. We tune in to our own intuition, thoughts, and feelings. We begin to recognize the diversity and beauty of plants and the interconnectedness of things. We take from gardening a broader understanding of our impact and effect on the world around us. It shows that what we give our time, attention, energy, and care to is what yields abundance and nourishment. Every aspect of our life, whether it be food, friendships, work, or community building benefits from this.
The best part is that gardening is something everybody can do. It’s incredibly accessible. Gardening can happen on a big plot of land or in one single pot on a balcony. It only takes one seed to get started. Create your garden as a family activity and work together to share responsibilities and care. You don’t need any specific experience; you just need to try. If things don’t go as planned, that’s okay! Embrace those situations as learning opportunities. There are plenty of people and resources out there to help you along the way. So go now and start with what you have on hand. You will find that over time, gardening will repay and reward you many times over. You might be surprised at just how much you learn about yourself and your place in the world as you tend to a garden.
Grow Some Good is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to creating hands-on, outdoor learning experiences that cultivate curiosity about natural life cycles, connect students to their food sources, and inspire better nutrition choices. In addition to helping establish food gardens and living science labs in local schools, we provide resources and curriculum support through community partnerships in agriculture, science, food education, and nutrition. growsomegood.org
