My love for gardening developed from a combination of boredom & necessity, thanks to the COVID19 lockdowns, and I’ve never been more appreciative of being stuck at home! My wife, Jess, is a plant based personal chef and call me biased, but she is unbelievably talented in her art. Not a classically trained chef, but that doesn’t matter here, her meals are as ridiculously delicious as they are beautifully crafted. She always says that you eat with your eyes first, so your plate better be colorful and gorgeous. And she is fantastic at putting it all together. As you can imagine, during the lockdowns fresh fruits and veggies were pretty scarce in the produce department so we had to have a little discussion about where our food would be coming from going forward if we didn’t want to end up stocking up on terrible vegan frozen dinners. This presented an opportunity to have a deeper conversation regarding our food system in general and how ridiculous it is that we buy produce that is grown thousands of miles away, picked too early, packaged, shipped, unloaded, displayed, and sold in stores, when we can grow quite a bit of it in our own backyard. So we decided to give it a go! And the first seeds of love were planted. Technically they were transplants from a local nursery, but you get the point. Understanding where our food comes from and what it takes to get to grocery stores, how it is grown, and tasting the difference between home-grown versus store bought was paramount in our decision to create a home garden in the middle of North Dallas. Granted I started with 5 raised beds in the backyard, but that didn’t last long. The front yard soon became my next victim of “Operation Turf Removal”. Not gonna lie, I was a little apprehensive at first since we are on a busy corner of our neighborhood, wondering what the neighbors were going to think, but that apprehension was soon replaced by complete joy thanks to the encouragement of everyone that I encountered while working outside. What an amazing opportunity to meet and connect with people I would have probably never come into contact with otherwise. The conversations definitely inspired me to keep going and the stories I have heard since, about neighbors creating gardens of their own because of what we have done, is beyond humbling. This is my new mission in life, to learn as much as possible and use that knowledge to help others grow as much food at home as they can. I have so much I want to accomplish in this world of gardening from creating a neighborhood CSA program to starting community gardens anywhere they will let me. I am no expert but I am here to help, any way I can, so please don’t be shy. Ask a question, send me a comment, or simply say hello. We would love to hear from you! Thanks for being here with us.