10/29/2026
I've come to believe that some of the most important things we grow never make it to the dinner table.
Although, thankfully plenty of them do.
There is something about walking into a greenhouse on an ordinary morning that makes the rest of the world seem a little less demanding. The lettuce doesn't know what's happening in the news. The rosemary has no opinion about the things I didn't accomplish yesterday. And the tiny seedlings pushing their way through the soil have absolutely no concern for whether I think they're growing fast enough.
They simply get on with the business of living. And, they cause me to slow down. For years, I watched my garden grow, but I didn't "watch" my garden grow. When you are up so close to everything growing in your greenhouse, you notice every detail in a different way. Very likely in ways you missed pretty much your entire gardening life.
I've spent enough years tending a garden to understand that very little worth having happens on our preferred schedule. Some seeds come up in days. Others take their sweet time. A few leave you wondering whether anything is happening at all, until one morning there it is, the smallest bit of green where yesterday there was nothing. I think about that more often than you might imagine.
My greenhouse has become a kitchen garden, a place where dinner begins long before anyone pulls out a skillet. Where a handful of herbs can make an ordinary meal something special, and where the lettuce on our plates was growing just a few feet away an hour earlier.
But somewhere along the way, it became something else, too.
A place to put my hands to work when my mind has had quite enough. A place where tending to something living reminds me that there is still so much good happening quietly, even when life outside those walls feels anything but quiet. And perhaps that's what I love most about growing things.
I am currently in the hardest season of my life with my son fighting mountain of a medical issue. It's makes our days very long and it all started back in May. But, this greenhouse is giving me the ability to exhale even when our days are heard. A garden never promises that every seed will flourish or that every season will be easy - very much like life. It simply offers us another opportunity to begin.
I've learned not to underestimate the value of that. It is speaking to me in ways like never before and it's powerful. Some mornings I walk out there thinking I'm going to take care of my plants.
More often than not, I come back realizing they've taken care of a little something in me, too.
I hope all of you that have a greenhouse, and those that will someday, get to experience this miracle. It's more than just a greenhouse and I truly mean that from the bottom of my heart. đź©· Shannon
