There are many life lessons from gardening. As the years pass season to season, gardens teach us things about life that change who we are.
From garden to table is the concept of growing food in your backyard “farm” and cooking it then serving it directly to the table. This trend exploded during the pandemic as people were home more and took interest in new hobbies and wanted to find ways to save money.
Growing your own produce gives you control – you can decide what to grow, and if you want to use chemicals or grow organically.
From Garden to Table
Our Garden to Table episode explores growing, cooking, and eating your own food with Mayenzeke and Mawande Baza. In this episode our guests share:
- How to start composting
- Building a greenhouse
- Choosing what to grow in your garden
- Aquaponics systems
- Learning from our mistakes
Listen to the Green with ENVY Podcast
Personal Lessons from Gardening
Patience and Consistency equals a good harvest
Lord knows I need some lessons in patience and gardening is something I do not have patience for. I hear a lot of people saying gardening is therapeutic but not for me. My relationship with my garden is “can it rain so my garden is happy”. I even have a gardener come in once a month to do the real work.
What the conversations with Mawande and Maye reminded me, is that everything in life that produces great results requires consistency and patience. Just like my journey with the gym. So, I am taking up the challenge to be more involved with my garden and convert on the side (for now) and a food patch. I will document the process and share it here. Wish me luck…
Talk to and treat your plants with love
Maye made me realize why people who have plants are often called Plant Moms and Dads. You can’t expect your plants to flourish when you don’t treat them like your children. He referred to his fruit tree that seemed dead and was not bearing fruit.
One day he screamed at the tree, and it fought back, he got a cut from the tree. It is after he started pruning and speaking to the tree with words of love and care, that’s when the tree bore fruit.
A lesson here, treat everything and everyone with respect and you will get respect back.
A practical biology lesson for you and your kids
The conversation between the Bazas proved that Maye does the heavy lifting and Mawande harvests. That is not all she does though, she saw an opportunity to teach her kids about the biology of nature and how food is produced.
Their garden has provided an interactive class for their kids. They now know how seeds germinate and produce the food they eat.
God nurtures us like nature
We normally take for granted what happens to nature around us on a daily. We expect the sun to rise in the morning and set in the afternoon, for seasons to change, for trees to shed their leaves around winter, and… just like clockwork.
The main thing that is constant is change. Yet when we are subjected to change in our lives, we get so uncomfortable, but that is God preparing us for something better, something bigger, for growth.
When Mawande said “God nurtures us like nature”, it reminded me not to fear change, that change is part of growth and it always led to something better.
Pruning is painful but is necessary
Many plant parents will always emphasize the importance of pruning your plants now and then. Linked to my previous point, God prunes us by putting us through trials and tribulations, yet we question him when we are low.
When we come out of the other side better, we forget to thank him for the lows, because they are the reasons, we celebrate highs. How boring life would be if we never get pruned, like the plants we would never grow.
There is so much we could learn from mother nature. One thing about homegirl is that she is always giving, and she will get to a point when her cup is empty. We just need to remember that we must replenish her in whatever way we can.
This blog/website will have articles on how you can replenish her cup bit by bit.
Thank you for listening!
