My father raised me on homegrown North Carolina staples such as tomatoes, corn, and melons. As a child I had my own little flower patch of Ipomoea, Jasmine, and Alyssum. When I entered my teens I moved around too often to garden, and until recently never had the means nor space.

Now that my husband and I are renting a home with a substantial yard, we long to fill it with those same staples and flowers from our childhood memories. Due to intermittent employment and college, we have often been thwarted by expenses—at times lacking even $5 for pots—but we hope this year will be an improvement!

We do already have a small jungle of houseplants, half cuttings from friends and half revived rejects from the local grocery. I hope to make my outdoor plantings as happy as my indoor ones.

My gardening dream is to own a small self-sustaining farm that utilizes a rain catchment system, sun showers, composting toilets, and more. I see the soil and the life that comes from it as a gift that should be cherished, not pillaged. While I may never attain the former, and I can live more and more by the latter.