The Garden Our Grandmothers Planted

If you grew up anywhere near a garden, I'm certain you remember it. 

There are staples that come to mind when anyone mentions a childhood garden. It could be a mystery you found in the corn rows, the yellow blossoms tucked among the watermelon vine, or, if you're like me, the purple polyester gardening pants my Granny wore nearly every time she stepped barefoot in the dirt. 

The garden you remember is probably not the perfect kind you see in magazines now.
Not rows measured with string and stakes, every plant standing politely in its place.

The gardens our grandmothers planted were different.

They spilled past the edges of where the garden was supposed to be.

There were tomatoes leaning against whatever they could find for support. Strawberry plants that crept out of their rows and into the grass. Flowers that seemed to reseed themselves wherever the wind decided they should go.

Nothing about those gardens felt perfectly planned.

And yet somehow, they always worked.

There was always something growing.

A row of beans climbing a fence.
A patch of marigolds keeps watch at the edge of the garden bed.
Wild chives that somehow found their way into every corner of the yard, whether anyone invited them there or not.

Our grandmothers didn’t seem too concerned with making gardens that looked impressive. They made gardens that were alive.

Gardens you could walk through barefoot on a summer morning, where bees drifted lazily from flower to flower while the sun warmed the soil. Gardens where you might be sent outside with a bowl and told to come back when it was full of something that would end up on the table later that evening.

There was work in those gardens, of course. Weeding. Watering. Bending low to the ground to see what had changed overnight.

But there was something else there, too.

Something slower.

Something patient.

A quiet understanding that things grow when you tend them. That life responds to attention. That the small, steady acts of care are what turn seeds into something worth harvesting.

And maybe that’s why gardens stay with us long after the plants themselves are gone. Both in our hearts and in our memories. 

Because what we remember isn’t just the tomatoes or the flowers.

We remember the hands that planted them.

We remember how someone showed up day after day to tend to something living, even when no one else was watching. We remember the pride of watching everyone sit around the dinner table, enjoying a meal prepared by the very hands that grew it.

The truth is, most of us carry pieces of those gardens with us, whether we realize it or not.

In the way we pause when we see wildflowers growing along the roadside or a wild patch of tulips up in a field. In the way the smell of fresh soil after rain can pull a memory from somewhere deep inside us.
In the way a single strawberry still tastes like summer when you pick it warm from the sun.

Some things we learn in gardens without ever being taught.

Patience. Responsibility. Resilience.
The quiet reward of caring for something that takes time to grow.

Maybe that’s why the symbols of gardens keep finding their way into my work. Maybe it’s that inner child reaching for something that takes her back to a time when the world felt quiet and full of love.

A small strawberry.
A bee.
A wildflower pressed into clay.

Not for any particular reason, certainly not because they are perfect or complicated.

But because they remind me of something simple and true.

The most meaningful things in life rarely appear overnight.

They grow slowly.

They require tending.

And if you’re lucky, somewhere along the way, you learn how to plant a few things of your own.

Even if all you’re planting is a small garden made of clay.