Black thumbs welcome Gardening and lessons on resilience
it all started with setting an intention
sort of like a new year’s resolution but
it was october
october of the longest year many of us
have ever lived
- spent the year
adjusting to a new normal teaching
college students for my laptop
helping others embrace self-care in the
midst of a pandemic
and indulging a newfound passion for
baking that was beginning to spiral out
of control
i needed to stabilize myself i was
compelled to find an outlet in the wake
of the pandemic
and the relentless fight against
systemic racism
and societal injustices the combination
of which scientists were referring to as
a syndemic i needed reassurance
that there was a light at the end of the
tunnel and that it wasn’t the flicker of
an
oncoming train so i set
two intentions healing and growth
an unlikely idea started to form in my
mind
i should take up gardening this struck
me by surprise
given an extensive history of plants
that have lost the will to live under my
care
or rather my negligence and although my
research focuses on self-care and i
teach stress management
i never even considered gardening as a
healing practice
so why am i here talking to you about
gardening today
i’m here to tell you about what
gardening did for me
it gave me a way to reconnect with
something positive in a world that felt
increasingly toxic
and volatile this experience of learning
to
nurture and care for a garden was
healing
giving me a sense of agency in a time of
uncertainty
learning to grow the food that i
consumed
taught me important lessons about
resilience the ability
to bounce back and move forward in the
face of adversity
i’d like to share these lessons with you
the first
lesson is to reconnect with your
foundation
i’d like to tell you about how
connecting with the land helped me to
reconnect to the strength of my family
roots
i had been casually following a local
black-owned urban farm
on social media for several months when
a specific social media post
caught me by surprise and shifted me
from admiring gardens from
afar to being compelled to start one of
my own
in the photo i saw a picture of a black
hand
grasping a yam from the soil
i recognized the yam as a beloved dish
at family gatherings
and as a daily staple in my own home i
recognized the hand
black like my own however
it was the land that i was disconnected
from the labor of this hand
fully emerged in the soil the process of
nurturing and growing this yield
were completely foreign to me the post
went on to explain the aversion that
many blacks have to working with the
land
given what they called a painful
association
with slavery and sharecropping they
spoke of gardening as a lost art
it made me think about my family’s roots
in tangipahoa parish louisiana
my great great great great grandfather
robert vernon
known as free bob or deacon bob grew up
enslaved in mississippi
and was separated from his wife and sons
when they were sold to different
plantations
he eventually was able to purchase his
freedom and move to louisiana
to join his father growing cotton on 160
acres of land
that he would eventually go on to expand
to more than 2
000 acres reunite with his sons and
create a family legacy
and although we’ve lost much of this
acreage over the years
we still have relatives living on the
land that bears our family name
vernon town here
robert vernon road is named for my great
great great great grandfather
my grandmother was raised on this land
her family grew stream beans
corn and potatoes to sell and sugarcane
to take to the mill for processing
my family eventually moved to california
in search of opportunity
however i have memories of my
grandfather dropping off bags of peas
for us to snap
every summer a child of the 80s i didn’t
understand why he would go to the
trouble to drive out to the fields or
when my grandmother would have us
sit and snap peas for days when they
were available in the freezer section of
the grocery market
however i’m grateful now to have had
even a slight connection to my family’s
heritage
this story of my people’s land and our
strength flows through my veins
gardening reminds me of our ability to
create with our own
bare hands as i garden i am taking part
in a ritual that has nourished my family
for more than a century
knowing that i’m a part of this legacy
reminds me of the strength that i
possess
to face challenges with courage and
confidence
the second lesson is to embrace a
beginner’s mind
well i’ve always enjoyed nature hikes
and felt a natural connection to the
ocean
i’d never thought about a practice in
which i was able to partner with nature
in its creative process my garden began
with seedlings of plants
such as cabbage onions lettuce
broccolini
edible flowers and spinach judging by my
initial reactions to my new
responsibilities of watering regularly
and checking for pests you would have
thought these were newborn babies
my mind was flooded with questions and
doubts
what if i over water my plants what if i
underwater them
of course i did both in the beginning
fortunately
i had the opportunity to work with
master gardeners
they helped me to ease into the process
patiently listening to my struggles and
my woes as they constructed my beds
maintained my soils and taught me how to
prune deadhead
weed water harvest and everything in
between
they truly had my back this partnership
helped to alleviate my anxiety and
embrace being a beginner
a big deal for someone who expects
yourself to be good at everything
the third lesson is that you must
nurture
what you want to see grow
my dill plant started out tiny and
scrawny
before growing more than four feet tall
and towering over all the rest of my
plants
i hesitated to pick it because if i
removed even two leaves it might be bare
i actually thought it was dead for a
while but i kept watering it two to
three times a week
just to be sure and as time passed it
develops
strong roots thick stems and the ability
to
grow in the directions that best ensured
its survival
given its productivity dill is now
constantly featured in our egg
fish and salad dishes i’ve taken this
lesson from the garden
into my daily life i’m reminded to keep
working towards my goals
and to not be deterred if they don’t
come to fruition immediately
fresh dill is incredibly bold and a
little bit goes a long way
its powerful flavor represents the
confidence i want to have in myself
rather than stress over every detail i
want to strive for consistency
and focus on practices that help me stay
the course when life becomes difficult
in a way i’m watering myself when i slow
down
and engage in practices that help me to
recover like meditation
devotion and expressing gratitude the
more that i incorporate these practices
in my daily life
the better i am able to cope with the
stress that life throws
my way the fourth lesson
is to let go of control and perfection
when you think of weeds do dandelions
come to mind
how about chamomile your answer is
likely shaped by your experiences with
these plants
weeds are defined as plants that grow
where they are not desired
i grew up thinking only of dandelions as
weeds but it turns out they were
historically valued
for their beauty nutritional value and
use as a medicine
perspective is everything it seems that
they’ve been successfully rebranded in
recent years
as they are featured in salads wines and
even coffee substitutes
while i didn’t plan to grow dandelion it
did grow in my garden free of pesticides
which meant i could eat the leaves and
salads i can spend my time
fighting against the strong determined
will of this plant or
i can learn how to value and utilize its
strengths
now we did plant the chamomile on
purpose but it started to grow
quickly and soon made it difficult for
nearby plants to thrive
so we relocated some of it to another
bed
however it isn’t a weed to me it’s a
sanctuary
when the problems of this world start to
overwhelm me
i step into my garden and i can feel my
body release
stress as i tend to harvest in chamomile
in a meditative state one flower at a
time
my husband and i have come to look
forward to an evening ritual
of sipping chamomile lemongrass and mint
teas
fresh from the garden i wasn’t always
good at noticing these simple pleasures
initially i spent an embarrassing amount
of time
chasing off soil gnats and searching
online for the perfect tools
or gloves or other ways to automate and
simplify my garden
task that is to say my
issues followed me into my relationship
with gardening
i wasn’t sure i was ready for the
commitment of having to water my plants
every two or three days what if i wanted
to go somewhere
and if a plant withered drooped or died
i was convinced it was confirmation that
gardening
was not for me i used to pull
even the smallest hint of a weed every
single weekend
recently i pulled out an entire swiss
chard plant
because as much as i treated the powdery
mildew on its leaves
it kept coming back upon further
reflection
i was feeling a bit down that day and
the swiss chard was an innocent
bystander
with a bit of patience i could have
washed the mildew off
and removed some of the more severely
impacted leaves giving it a chance to
grow back
pulling it out was admittedly a bit of
an overreaction
however that empty spot in the garden
now reminds me in life to take a moment
to breathe
and to reflect before i respond to a
situation
it is helpful for me to remember that
the path to joy
travels through mindfulness not
perfection
i have to be present with my current
reality and accept it
without judgment there are opportunities
for joy in our daily lives
but we miss most of them because our
minds are busy thinking about the past
or what we have to do next or what could
possibly go wrong
when is the last time that you pause to
admire the colors of the sky
or to notice the growth of leaves on a
tree
as it emerges from the winter and
welcomes the spring
when i step into the garden it is a
fully immersive experience
i take in the colors the fragrances
and the textures because i pay close
attention to my garden on a near-daily
basis
i can quickly sense changes in growth
and appearance
these small changes bring me joy
i know that not all of my vegetables are
going to survive my beginner gardening
skills
and the rest of them will eventually be
harvested and eaten
for this reason i try to appreciate the
current state of my garden
if i require perfection i never would
have started in the first place
my garden isn’t in an ideal sunny area
and i deal with my fair share of pests
and yet i keep showing up to tend to my
garden
using it as an escape for my daily life
fighting against entropy
because of the joy that i get out of
this imperfect masterpiece that i’ve
created
in a similar way i want to be present
enough
to enjoy the blessings relationships and
experiences that i currently have in my
life
i don’t want to make the mistake of
waiting for perfect conditions
i’ve lived too much of my life this way
it’s time to let go of this expectation
the normalcy that we’ve been warning the
loss of is likely not returning
at least not in the form that we
remembered we have to start valuing what
remains
we can’t do it all or fix it all and
that’s okay
in fact it came as a release to me to
finally accept that i don’t have all of
the answers
embracing uncertainty is what allows me
to focus on what is under my control
the fifth and final lesson is to find
healing
in community the gardening community
that i’m a part of has had a profound
impact on me
the beautiful harvest that i grow in my
garden is a reflection of every person
that helped me
to construct it find my feet as a
beginner and embrace a deeper
appreciation for the healing power of
fresh food
recently one of the expert gardeners
that i had the fortune of working with
passed away unexpectedly he taught me
the true meaning of soul food as he
tended to each of my plants with great
care
soul food is the loving labor poured
into creating meals
that nurture our soul as well as our
bodies
and that starts with the growing process
interacting with passionate gardeners
has also influenced my own diet
they’ve exposed me to a lifestyle of
stepping out into the garden after a
long day to clip some lettuce
and some herbs for my meals which i
frequently do now
the more connected i am to the growing
process the more i find myself drawn to
eating whole
unprocessed foods and actually
prioritizing them
over the refined carbohydrates and added
sugars that i previously craved
gardening is a springboard for
connection i’ve joined several online
forms for black women who garden
something i never imagined existed we
give ourselves the gift of
representation
sharing images we rarely see of
ourselves in the media
tending to acres of land and elderly
women posting selfies where they look 20
years younger than their actual age
we help each other troubleshoot and care
for our plants we engage in communal
healing as we learn to nurture life
together
and it heals us as we deal with traumas
in the outside world
i share lessons from my garden with my
friends on social media
and even my local farm shares these
lessons with our greater community
i’ve highlighted for you how gardening
has been a tool for joy
resilience and healing in my life
through teaching me five
important lessons one reconnect with
your foundation
two embrace a beginner’s mind
three nurture what you want to see grow
four let go of control and perfection
and five find healing in community
these lessons have helped me over the
past year to cope positively with stress
and disrupt my default stress coping
behaviors such as
comfort eating and overworking i have
found sanctuary in my gardening
my experience isn’t unique perhaps for
many of us gardening has been a
welcoming self
a friend that embraces us as we are and
invites us to stay a while
a respite from the outside world in fact
people who spend time in nature on a
regular basis report lower levels of
anxiety
and higher levels of well-being than
those who don’t
however healing efforts at the
individual level
are incomplete without larger efforts to
heal
broken systems for many these times have
widened equity gaps
complicating the plight for basic needs
and survival
we must work together to make healing
accessible for all
especially those who need it most food
is not only sustenance
it is a matter of justice of joy
of healing and of pleasure
as a public health researcher i am
advocating for the creation of
comprehensive gardening programs
in marginalized communities to help
address health disparities through
holistic approaches
yes gardening can address many aspects
of well-being
the most obvious being nutrition and
physical activity
however there is also a spiritual
element it is a practical tool
for stress management and for
cultivating community
my final call of action today is to you
to identify a healing practice
that works in your life these practices
are what helped my own healing journey
but i challenge you to experiment and
find what works for you
perhaps it’s walking in nature engaging
in play
spending time with loved ones taking
time to rest
reflect journal in the end
the lessons that i have shared transcend
gardening they have the power to help
you
overcome challenges and experience
growth in the process
whatever you are facing in your life you
can make the choice to respond with
resilience
cheers to your journey and finding the
practices that heal
nourish and strengthen you