A Year of Gratitude – July 8, 2024

This time of year, my gratitude grows in the garden. There seems to be something new worthy of gratitude every time I take a stroll through the kitchen garden. It’s such a wonderful time of year.

Sure, there are chores to be done. Yes, the weather is often hot and terribly humid. Garden pests are more prolific than I would like. Yet every bite of homegrown produce is a triumph.

Each bite represents months, or sometimes years, of effort. Beyond the effort, a gardener also has to keep hope alive. They have to believe that their hard work and efforts will be rewarded, that what doesn’t do well this season will come back with abundance next year.

Perhaps it is that belief, and the matching harvest that results, that is the reason for my daily gardener’s gratitude. Believing in the promise of the garden, of the good that will appear in the days ahead in the garden helps to remind me that the challenges that land in my day are worth the struggle because they keep me moving forward, get me closer to these delicious rewards.

For a gardener, there are few crops more prized than the tomato. They require so much time and attention to get them to this point. Once the tomatoes begin to ripen, garden pests seem to appear out of thin air to try and enjoy them before you have a chance. And there’s simply nothing I grow that fills me with as much joy as a thick slice of a homegrown tomato still warm from the sunshine. Nothing.

So here’s to gardening, to planting literal seeds in the hope that they will flourish with care and time and create something worthy of being filled to the brim with gratitude for. It’s really no wonder that I love to garden. I can grow my own gratitude, harvest it, and share it with my family. How could I be anything but grateful for that?

This post is part of our A Year of Gratitude Series. You can find the introduction, inspiration, and entire year’s gratitude’s posts here.