Gardening Grows More Than Plants. Around two decades ago, my wife and I set up a garden in memory of my late parents, Margarita and Antonio Soto. So to celebrate that, we decided gardening is about more than plants, it is how conversations begin around the neighborhood, friendships grow from a bag of compost and neighbors share skills, produce and simple acts of kindness.
Three decades ago, after moving to a charming New York City island, I made friends with 90 years young, Capt. Ed Saddler, a clam digger who was born on the Island. He explained that I was a mussel sucker. In City Island a Slice of New York City Paradise, a clam digger is a local term for someone who was born and raised on the island. It distinguishes lifelong, native residents from newcomers, or mussel suckers in this tight-knit seaside community. We developed a friendship until he passed. Now Nick his grandson shares the tomatoes 🍅 he harvests.
Scientific studies indicate that gardening promotes mindfulness, mental health and social connection while reducing stress and improving overall well-being. These moments show why planting something is rarely just about the garden.
One neighborhood gardener began composting because they felt guilty about wasting vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and garden waste. When they produced more compost than their raised beds needed, they left bags near a community notice board with a simple message: Free compost. Take what you need.
A woman started taking a bag each week. A month later, she arrived at the gardener’s gate with a jar of homemade strawberry jam. She had grown the strawberries with the compost and said she had not grown them since her children were young. She had not expected to care so much about gardening again.
Now, they trade garden produce. Another friendship grew from something that otherwise might have gone into the trash.
Another gardener spent seven years watching a neighbor plant sunflowers along their shared fence. The reason became clear only after the neighbor moved away.
In her note, she explained that she had deliberately planted the sunflowers on the other side of the fence because they followed the sunlight and she thought the kitchen window needed something beautiful to greet each morning.
For seven years, the gardener had eaten breakfast beside those flowers without realizing they were a gift.
This Spring, the gardener planted a double row of sunflowers along the fence — half on their side, half leaning toward the new neighbors’ kitchen window.
They have not told the neighbors why. Maybe they never will. Because sometimes gardening is not about growing flowers. It is about deciding, quietly and generously, what someone else’s morning should look like.
My peppers are growing fast, and after sharing, perhaps they will call me Sgt. Pepper 🌶️
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xwwABrNLvFs&list=PLUbWhnfHu1fWSgdDC3hKhX8…
I look forward to the sweet potato harvest.