Gratitude for the Harvest: Lessons from My Garden Blues

This year has been a rough one. In our household, we’ve suffered great loss, and at times, it’s been hard to see the good in much of anything. The weight of it all took its toll in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Our health slipped—physically and emotionally. And my garden, my sanctuary, reflected that struggle. It’s never looked so neglected. Not since the very first year I decided to put my hands in the soil. But here’s the thing about gardens, even in their sad, neglected state, they still manage to give back.

I’ve spent many days this year sitting in my garden, looking around and feeling like I had let it down. The weeds crept in where I didn’t have the energy to keep them at bay, the plants wilted from missed waterings, and the harvests were nowhere near what they had been in previous years. In many ways, it felt like a metaphor for my life—disarrayed, struggling, surviving but just barely.

But the garden, even at its worst, still managed to produce something. It wasn’t the most spectacular yield. There were no overflowing baskets of tomatoes or towering stalks of kale, but there were some fruits of my labor, despite the chaos. And there’s something deeply humbling about that—about seeing that even when I had nothing left to give, the earth was still willing to meet me halfway.

This blog post is a little different from most. Usually, I’m here to teach, to educate, to share the joys and rewards of gardening for nutrition and wellness. But today, I just want to share my story of what it’s like when the garden isn’t your crowning achievement but rather a quiet, resilient presence that asks for so little and gives what it can.

The truth is, I learned a lot from my sad garden this year. I learned that it’s okay to not have it all together, that sometimes showing up is enough. When I could hardly muster the energy to pull a few weeds, the garden still produced a few squash, still gave me the satisfaction of plucking a handful of cherry tomatoes from their vines. It was a reminder that life, even in the hard times, can still offer us little pockets of grace.

There were mornings when I’d walk out there, coffee in hand, just to breathe and listen. And while the garden didn’t look like much, it felt like something. It was a space where I could sit with my grief, and somehow, it softened the edges of it. I realized that gardening isn’t just about what you grow. It’s about the act of tending to something, even when your heart feels too heavy to carry. Sometimes, the garden is there for you in ways you didn’t expect—quietly, patiently, without asking for perfection.

I’m grateful for that lesson this year. I’m grateful for the resilience of the plants, for the way they showed me that even when I was struggling, I hadn’t failed. The garden didn’t need me to be perfect, and I think that’s something I needed to hear.

I think back to those first few years of gardening when every little success felt monumental. When a ripe tomato felt like a miracle, and I couldn’t wait to share the bounty with my family. This year, that excitement wasn’t there, but the gratitude was. Gratitude for the garden’s willingness to keep going, even when I couldn’t tend to it like I used to. Gratitude for the small reminders that life moves forward, even when it feels like it’s standing still.

As the season comes to an end, I’m not harvesting baskets full of produce. But I’m still harvesting something—a deeper understanding, a gentler relationship with myself, and a quiet gratitude for the little things that carry us through the hardest times.

So, this blog post is not about the biggest and best yields or the prettiest garden beds. It’s about resilience, about the lessons learned from a garden that mirrored my year of struggle. And in the end, despite everything, I still found something to be grateful for.

If you’re reading this and you’ve had a tough year too, I hope this reminds you that it’s okay to be where you are. It’s okay if your garden (or your life) doesn’t look the way you planned. There’s still something to be grateful for, even in the small things. Even in the garden blues.

And for that, I am thankful.

~Nikki~