The weather has been unreasonable warm for this time of year. There has been no winter to speak of, and the fruit trees are showing signs of budding. All of this is not good for anything in the high desert plains of Northwestern Nevada. Not good at all.
Around this time of year, our thoughts turn to pruning, garden cleanup, hardscaping, and what to plant in the garden. Last year, if you remember, all sprouts were taken out in one day by a very industrious squirrel. Hoping not to repeat that, the question remains. How many seedlings will by ornamental and how many functional.
Just the other night, HHH and I enjoyed homemade spaghetti sauce from our 2025 tomato crop. What a treat to know exactly how the tomatoes were raised and what went into the sauce. Tomatoes will definitely be in our garden. As for more exotic crops, like cantaloupe, watermelon, cauliflower, or broccoli, we’ll leave that for the experts, buying the finished products at the grocery store.
To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow. It is an act of hope performed with dirt-stained hands and a heart willing to trust what cannot yet be seen. While doing this, a gardener learns about the hidden world living right under their noses, discovering what plants and animals quietly coexist in the garden.
When we press seeds into the soil, nothing about the moment guarantees success. The ground may still be cold. With the weather uncertain and the outcome unknown, we plant anyway. We’ll water, wait, tend and believe.
Gardening asks us to look forward. It teaches patience in a world that prefers immediacy. Seeds do not rush. Roots grow quietly, unseen, doing important work long before anything breaks the surface. Growth happens whether we’re watching or not.
There is faith in waiting for warmth to return. It takes faith and belief that rain will come. Faith that the smallest beginnings can lead to something beautiful and nourishing.
A garden also reminds us that tomorrow is worth preparing for, even when today feels heavy or the world seems uncertain. Especially then. Each planted seed is a quiet declaration that life continues, that beauty will return, and that effort made today matters.
Not every seed will sprout. Not every season will be abundant. But gardeners know this and plant anyway. Hope, like gardening, is not the absence of disappointment but the willingness to begin again.
To plant a garden is to choose optimism over despair. It is to invest time, care, and love into something that will feed not just the body, but the spirit. It is believing that the future holds possibility, color, and growth.
And when the first green shoots finally appear, we are reminded why we planted in the first place. Tomorrow arrives, just as promised.
More tomorrow.
