Not a nature girl

If you told me five years ago that one day, I would be happily married to a country boy almost seven years younger than me, that I would house chicks in a fish tank on my dining table, that I would be contemplating cycling to work--I would have thought that you were high. I would have told you that have mistaken me for my organic-eating, home-birth advocating, clog-wearing twin from an alternate universe. Back then, I was still caught up in the on-again-off-again love affair with my pack-a-day nicotine habit. I didn't leave the house without lipstick, and I over-dressed for every gathering I attended. The life I had envisioned for myself involved an electric and cosmopolitan city like New York, London, or even LA, lots of strappy heels, cocktails, and academic discussions enlivened by flirting; I was biding my time till I could move.

Fast-forward five years later:

V and I have been planning our little plot in the back for months now. The weather has finally turned a corner, and I am giddy about the sun and the longer days.

It’s an understatement to say that being married and raising a child have changed my outlook on life. With the current economic downturn and the resurgence in “victory gardens,” I am taking stock of how I live, what I consume and the impact my habits have for my family and for future generations. As a parent, I want to give my children the skills and the space to grow into their best selves. And gardening is an important part of that equation. Knowing how to transform a seedling into sustenance is profoundly empowering, and if I want my daughter to become self-reliant and independent, I need to teach her how to tend a garden.

But, first I need to learn how to do it myself.