It all started in February when my husband and I decided to try growing tomatoes from seeds. I remember my husband talking about how he had grown a garden with his grandmother, and because he already had some knowledge about starting seeds, he was able to help me get started. At the time, I didn’t really know much about growing plants, but I was curious and willing to give it a try.
We had a tomato from the store, and instead of throwing the seeds away, we decided to save them. We scooped the seeds out and placed them on the windowsill to dry, and I remember looking at them and not really understanding how something so small could eventually become a plant that would produce food. Once the seeds were dry, we planted two to four seeds in each of some recycled plastic containers and placed them above our kitchen sink.
When I first saw something growing, I honestly thought it looked like a weed. Even though I wasn’t sure what I was looking at yet, I was still happy because I was growing something. As the little sprouts continued to grow, I started to realize that they were tomato plants, and being able to recognize what was coming out of the soil gave me a sense of accomplishment and made me want to keep paying attention to them.
I was surprised by how slowly the plants grew in the beginning, but once the weather started changing, they began growing much faster. It was one of my first experiences seeing how much the environment can affect a plant. I started paying attention to what was happening around them instead of just thinking about the plant itself.
When the tomato plants became about the size of their containers, I moved them into larger recycled plastic containers. Some of the plants had grown together, so I had to carefully separate them before giving them more room to grow. I started paying attention, trying one thing new at a time, and watched to see what would happen.
Once the tomatoes were placed outside, I started noticing some new problems. They weren’t getting enough water, and they were also dealing with a lot of sun. I started making compost for the soil and created a watering schedule so I could be more consistent with giving them what they needed. After making those changes, the plants started doing better, and I began to understand that caring for plants isn’t just about putting them in the ground and hoping they grow. You have to pay attention to their environment and be willing to make changes when they show you that something isn’t working.
I let the tomato plants grow as big as they wanted, and eventually I started seeing flowers appear. When I saw the flowers turning into little green balls, that was when I really started getting excited. I knew I was actually growing tomatoes. It was amazing to think that we had started with seeds from a tomato we had eaten, and now I was watching new tomatoes develop from the plants I had cared for.
When the first tomato was ready to pick, it was still orange, so I brought it inside and placed it upside down on the kitchen table to let it finish ripening. Once it was ready, my husband and I cut it into slices so we could both have some, and when we took our first bite, I remember thinking that it was sweet and slightly acidic and that my tongue was thanking me.
I asked my husband what could possibly make this tomato taste so much better than the tomatoes we were used to eating, and he said that it could be because of the lack of chemicals. That answer really stuck with me because it made me start thinking about the difference between growing something yourself and buying it from a store. I started wondering what I had been eating all those years and what actually went into growing the food that I was buying.
That curiosity led me into a much deeper interest in soil, growing practices, and what is put into the food we eat. I started learning about how different soil and growing conditions can affect plants, and I became more aware of what I was allowing myself to consume. This became part of a much bigger personal journey for me, including quitting nicotine vaping and becoming more conscious about what I was putting into my body and the choices I was making for myself.
Looking back, it is interesting to me that something as simple as planting tomato seeds could lead me into so many other areas of my life. After growing that first tomato, I started experimenting with other plants, and there was definitely a lot of trial and error. Some plants grew well, some didn’t, and some taught me just as much by not growing properly as the successful ones did.
My neighbor eventually noticed all the plants I was growing and gave me flower and gourd seeds to try. As I spent more time in the garden, I began learning more and naturally started paying attention to things I had never really noticed before. I noticed the flowers growing and then noticed the pollinators coming to them, and I even started seeing deer enjoying pieces of the corn I was trying to grow alongside my butternut squash and beans. The beans never grew properly, but I didn’t see that as a complete failure because I was learning something every time I tried.
The more time I spent in the garden, the more I began to understand that the garden wasn’t just about the plants I was growing for myself. There were insects, animals, soil organisms, flowers, weather, sunlight, water, and so many other things interacting with what I was doing. I started to see how connected everything was, and I became more interested in understanding those connections instead of simply trying to control what happened in the garden.
One of the things that really changed my perspective was seeing the full cycle of turning compost into soil, planting a seed, watching it become a plant, harvesting the food, and then having that food become part of our lives. I could see that nothing was really separate from everything else, and gardening slowly became less of an experiment and more of a way of life for me.
Before I started growing tomatoes, I didn’t really pay much attention to how plants developed or why they were important. I would see plants growing around me, but I mostly thought of them as either plants that were useful to us or plants that weren’t. I didn’t think much about what they were doing, what they needed, or how many other living things depended on them.
My husband introducing me to those tomato seeds opened up a whole new way of looking at the world for me. It made me curious about plants, soil, food, insects, and the natural processes happening around me, and the more I learned, the more I wanted to understand.
Later, I discovered that my great-grandfather loved gardening too, and finding that out made me wonder if maybe being a caretaker of the Earth was something that had always been a part of my family. I don’t know if I can say for certain that it is in my blood, but I do know that gardening has become something that feels very natural to me and has given me a sense of purpose that I didn’t have before.
Growing tomatoes taught me the importance of understanding the different cycles of life and recognizing that everything has a part to play. It taught me that plants respond to their environment and that we can learn a lot by simply paying attention to what they are showing us. It also taught me that things don’t always work the first time, and that failure can be part of learning how to do something better.
When I think about where I was when I first planted those tomato seeds, I don’t think I would have been able to understand where that experience was going to lead me. If I could talk to that version of myself now, I would thank her for being willing to take on something new, for being curious enough to keep learning, and for finding the strength to keep moving forward even when she didn’t know exactly what she was doing.
Those first tomato seeds ended up being much more than an experiment. They introduced me to a part of myself that I hadn’t really discovered before and helped me understand the importance of caring for the world around me. They also helped me realize that growing isn’t just something plants do; it is something we do as people too, and sometimes the first step is simply being willing to plant the seed and see what happens.
