Your Garden: Not Just For You

Picture this: orange chunks of sweet, juicy cantaloupe; crisp, dew-dropped lettuce; warm, fresh-roasted sweet bell peppers; firm, juice-gushing vine-ripened tomatoes.

Is your mouth watering yet?

It’s gardening season. For years pallets of bagged soil and six-pack starts in store parking lots made me cringe with guilt. Everyone always said that you need to plant a garden. I have never had my own home. I have never had enough space for a garden. To top it all, for a long time I had zero desire to garden.

My positive thoughts on gardening came on gradually until a major life change—becoming a stay-at-home mom—opened up enough home-focused time in my life to give me a chance to embrace gardening. But I don’t think I would have ever had the desire to plant a garden for myself if it were not for years of examples of wonderful gardeners from my past.

First: my parents. We tried to plant a garden every year of my childhood that I could remember. We most often failed. Our soil, climate, yard orientation relative to the sun, and infiltration of gophers just didn’t make for much success. Then we had a dog that ate our green vegetables before we had a chance to let them ripen and harvest them. That didn’t help things either.

More recently, even though the nest is mostly empty, my parents keep plowing ahead with their gardening efforts. Over the years, they’ve acquired citrus trees, which have been their best success, and now my mom’s homegrown lemonade is becoming the envy of summer wedding receptions in the area. My parents, even after decades, are still working and learning to make the best of their home and bit of earth.

But our struggles were not universal to our area. I could list a good handful of ward members whose thumbs were completely green. My wedding reception was held in the fairyland-like yard of one of those ward members. When I was a kid, we used to pick apples for a widow in the ward who didn’t have the energy to can anymore. Although I never pictured myself as a gardener for a long time, the success of these beautiful yards still filled me with an awe that I could not deny.

Finally, there are my in-laws. They are amazing gardeners. They have a huge backyard. They buy fancy seeds from a catalogue. Their produce looks better than what you can buy from the store. They have so much experience that they generally rotate from a fruit garden to a vegetable garden every other year just to keep themselves interested because they are such experts. And they are probably the ones who impacted me the most with regards to gardening. Why? Because they have shared.

A fall hasn’t gone by since I have been part of their family when my in-laws haven’t given us several laden baskets of beans, grapes, squash, berries, tomatoes—you name it. At first I felt bad about these generous gifts. I hadn’t done any of the work, and here I was basking in the riches of their labors. I felt even guiltier when I realized that their generosity was also saving me a lot on my grocery bill. But in time I realized that their garden produced more and to spare. They loved sharing the joy of their harvest, and they had so much that they needed to give a lot of it away.
It was this sense of generosity and bounty that really attracted me to gardening. My in-laws’ home-grown gifts brought me a lot of health and happiness, but I could tell that the health and happiness that the givers felt was many times more than what they gave away to me.

I have heard it said that the greatest joy of wealth is the ability to give it away. I have learned that the same is true with planting a garden. It is wonderful to grow your own produce, but even more joyful to have so much that you can give it away. Even our first tomato plant produced much more than we could dream of consuming. I loved giving tomatoes away to everyone that I loved!

I dragged my feet for years and years about planting a garden. Even now, I don’t own my own home; I live in a small apartment and garden out of a small, homemade garden box. Maybe you only have room for a small pot. Whatever it is, I hope you choose to garden at least to give. I aspire to being a neighbor or in-law who can’t help but give baskets of gorgeous tomatoes away every year. I want to be the older ward member who invites the younger families to pick and can from my fruit trees. I want to garden so I can give; how about you?

Your Garden: 5 Reasons to Get Started

 “There is a great work for the Saints to do. Progress and improve upon and make beautiful everything around you. Cultivate the earth, and cultivate your minds. . . . Make gardens, orchards, and vineyards, and render the earth so pleasant that when you look upon your labors you may do so with pleasure, and that angels may delight to come and visit your beautiful locations.”
- Brigham Young, Deseret News, Aug. 8, 1860, 177.

I am a gardener, and I never thought I’d say that.

In the past, gardening was always something I associated with the mature folk, with retirement and stiff knees, with everybody but me—with people who had extra time on their hands. But then, all of the sudden, I found myself wanting to garden last summer. I was a new mom and despite the demands of an infant, I knew that changing to be a stay-at-home mom suddenly opened up enough time in my life to garden. Even more surprising than that, I actually wanted to do it. And I didn’t even want to do it for provident living, self-reliance, or any other commandment—just for the joy of it.

I’ve thought about whether my intrinsic gardening desires are manifestations of a heritage from generations of agrarian ancestors across the centuries, but I think that it’s more likely that wanting to plant, cultivate, nurture, and harvest is an endowment from my heavenly ancestry. Elder Uchtdorf has said, “The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. . . . Your very spirits are fashioned by an endlessly creative and eternally compassionate God” (“Happiness, Your Heritage,” October 2008 General Conference). I have found that, as Elder Uchtdorf said, “Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment” in gardening.
This year I planned my little garden and bought seeds in February because I was so excited about it. I started growing plants from seed indoors in March, and I’m growing twice as much as I’m going to plant so I can give my extra starts away to friends who might need help starting their garden.

I am so excited about this joy that I’ve found. I feel like people in my life talked about the joy of gardening to me for years and I never listened, but now I want to share it with everyone. If gardening doesn’t seem like your thing; if you never, ever picture yourself in galoshes, gloves, and a straw hat; if you can’t bear to get your hands dirty and don’t care about where your vegetables come from, I still encourage you to give gardening a try—this year.

Maybe you have a backyard to fill, maybe, like me, you only have a tiny plot of earth to work with, or maybe you only have one little pot of basil. Whatever your situation, give it a try and share in the joy of the miracle of creation. These are the top five reasons I think you should.


1. Get Outside
Gardening got me outside last summer. As a new mother, I needed the fresh air, the sunshine, and the green grass to help me cope with all the changes I needed to handle in my life. We all have changes and challenges going in our lives, and whose trials can’t be helped with a little sunshine and fresh air? The world is for our enjoyment and is so full of beauty. Gardening might be just the thing to get you out there and enjoying it.

2. Be Grateful
I have an aunt who gardens with her middle school class. She reports that there have been students in her class who honestly didn’t know where produce from the grocery store came from—that it originated in the ground or on a bush, tree, or vine. That’s not how I want my children to be raised, but who is going to teach them unless I do by gardening?

Doing the work yourself can help you appreciate food and farmers, technology and agriculture, but above all gardening has taught me what a miracle life and growing and the whole world are—all as a gift from God. Yes, I did make a garden box, filled it with dirt, planted seeds, weeded and watered, but in the end I still can’t believe that a dozen carrots appeared in the ground. It was such a miracle. I can’t wait to watch it happen again.


3. Feel Pretty
The only flowers we planted last year were marigolds to help keep the bad bugs away. Marigolds: bright and smelly. The bees loved them, though, and that flattered me enough to make me love the bees.
No matter what you plant—flowers, vegetables, trees, shrubs, grass, whatever—gardens are beautiful. I felt happy every time I saw my pretty little 7’x2’ garden. The world always needs more beauty: Plant a garden.

4. Enjoy the Fruits
Oh, the vegetables of my labors. My father-in-law always says, “Now this is a tomato!” at least a zillion times every summer after they pull in their massive tomato crop. I never really believed him until I ate my own home-grown carrots. My life will never be the same. Plant a garden and enjoy the fruits of your labors!

5. Unify Your Family
The Home and Family Relations manual says, “Families who work together in a home garden build family unity because they share a common purpose.” Even though my family consists of me, my husband, and my baby, I found this to be true. I love letting my baby play alongside my garden. It makes me feel like he’s helping even though he’s too small because I know that one day he will help. Even though my husband works all day and doesn’t have much time for the garden, calling it “our garden” means that I tell him all about its progress and point out all the growth to him, even if he only has time to help out on an occasional Saturday. President Kimball said, “There is so much to . . . harvest from your garden, far more than just a crop itself!” (Ensign, May 1978, 79). I have found this to be true even in my little family.

I am a gardener of exactly seven cubic feet of earth, plus a few random flower pots. I wouldn’t call my thumb exactly green, but I guess that gives me something to aspire to when I’m mature, retired, and have too much time on my hands (which we know will probably never happen).

The Lord has said, “All things which come of the earth . . . are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart” (D&C 59:18). I have tasted of that joy; I have had my heart filled with gladness from my garden. I hope you can experience it too.

Done Now, Done Right

 President Kimball once said, “One of the most serious human defects in all ages is procrastination” (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [1982], 48). Procrastination robs us of effective and meaningful time as well as of peace of mind and confidence. Sometimes we spend all our energy putting off tasks—large or small—that we grow to loathe them and sink into a spiral of guilt and cowardice. Elder Marvin J. Ashton has called procrastination “unproductive delay” and encouraged us to instead do things “straightway . . . immediately, without delay or hesitation” (Marvin J. Ashton, “Straightway,” Ensign, May 1983, 30).

Over the past year I have made a significant career change from a full-time office professional to an overtime wife, mother, and homemaker. As all mothers know, this challenging shift in my daily work was pretty daunting at first. Instead of having a focused routine driven by deadlines in the workplace, I became the one-woman manager and entire team of our home life in charge of all the decisions. Okay, my husband helps a lot at home, but during the day, when he’s gone, it’s up to me. This change from relying on and performing for other people to needing to rely solely on myself for motivation has been significant.

Over time, I have discovered that many of the skills that helped keep me motivated in the workplace can help me not procrastinate my responsibilities at home, especially these five: (1) Prioritize, (2) Be early, (3) Amplify your strengths, (4) Set honest goals and give honest praise, and (5) Reward yourself. While at this time in my life I’m focused on improving my homemaking and mothering skills and not procrastinating those duties, these five principles should help you in whatever responsibilities you need help with in your life—work, school, family, church service, etc.

1. Prioritize

I am a list person. I have lists on my refrigerator, my shopping list, my planner, and all over the house. During busy times at work, my desk sometimes turned into a forest of Post-It notes as I tried to keep things from slipping through the cracks.

Lists are helpful, but they can also be daunting unless you know how to prioritize. If you have a lot of “To-Dos” on your mind, it might be time for what one of my co-workers called “a meeting with yourself” to get things in order. What things should you do today, this week, this month, or when you have more time?
Now that I’m at home, it is easy to make the wrong prioritizing choices by thinking that things like scripture study and prayer can be pushed aside for pressing appointments and chores; I have to constantly remind myself what is most important, especially at times when there are so many things that need my time and attention. Properly prioritizing can help you avoid procrastination because giving the most important things your first attention makes subsequent tasks run more smoothly.

2. Be Early

Being early isn’t just about getting to a meeting on time. At work it meant getting a report finished a few days before a deadline or answering an email before it became urgent. Now being early means mixing up the cornbread dry ingredients in the early afternoon so there is less to do right before dinner or balancing the budget frequently so that it never piles very high. Choosing to put time into something that you know you will have to do eventually before it is a stress is one of my key defenses against procrastination. Try it and see: What can you do today so you don’t have to worry about it tomorrow?

3. Amplify Your Strengths

Although it is important to do the most important tasks first, sometimes a group of tasks are equally important. At these times, it is okay to do what you like best first: Search for a strength to help you overcome your weakness. For example, maybe you have a list of people to get in touch with. Would you rather phone, email, text, or something else? As long as the methods are equally effective, choose the one you are good at and like. This will help you deter procrastination. At home, I love having a clean house but there are some chores I don’t really like doing. To play up my strengths, I remind myself how much I love the clean in order to motivate myself to do the work to make my home that way.

4. Set Honest Goals, Give Honest Praise

No one wins when you overwork yourself or set expectations that are honestly beyond your abilities. When I first became a full-time homemaker, I thought the best thing would be to have a one-day housecleaning wonder once a week—one day when I would make the house spotless so I would only have to deep clean once a week. Honestly, I don’t have time to commit to only housecleaning for a whole day on the same day every week. Instead, I try to make sure I clean everything at least once a week, which I can honestly do, but it’s okay that it means vacuuming one day, cleaning sinks another, and sweeping on another, all on different days each week. Assessing your work honestly means telling yourself you are doing a good job even if you are not reaching what you think is “ideal.” If I can clean half the house all on one day, I rant about it to my husband the whole evening because I know that I did an amazing job.

5. Reward Yourself

Rewards are a step beyond praise. Be sure to treat yourself with something special when you do something great. Rewards can be a great motivator. Now, keep it moderate (not too much chocolate!), but I have heard of an English teacher who stuck M&Ms randomly in the stack of papers she had to grade to keep herself fresh and motivated while working. Sometimes it’s helpful to motivate yourself with “fun jobs.” For example, as soon as you complete the report at work that you’re not excited about, you can check your email. At home, we all have chores that we like okay and that we hate; maybe do the one you hate first and then reward yourself with doing something productive that you like.

When called by the Savior to follow him, the disciples “straightway left their nets” and “immediately left the ship” in order to answer his call. They recognized that following the Savior was their highest priority. We can seek His help in learning how to be most effective in fulfilling our responsibilities in our families, homes, wards, careers, and other worthy life pursuits. Elder Ashton has said, “One of our greatest resources for success and happiness is doing the right thing now.” By prioritizing, being early, using our strengths, setting goals, and giving ourselves rewards, we can overcome procrastination and enjoy that happiness of “doing the right thing now.”

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