It’s the little things when you are a gardener. And sometimes it has nothing to do with your own garden. Sometimes it’s the paying it forward and getting others to garden, or giving someone extra plants you have.

The photo above? My friend Belinda’s garden. I gave her some of my extra tomato plants. Her youngest son (whom I just adore) likes gardening just like his mama. I gave them some of all of the varieties of tomatoes I grew: Celebrity, Big Beef, and Bumble Bee. And today in my gardening group she posts this photo you see above with:

“A month or so ago Carla posted she had some extra tomato plants she started from seed. My 12 yo son Spencer said can I have some. So we stop by to pick up 2 or 3 plants and ended up taking all 9😱😅. He was so excited he researched growing in container and he picked out red 5 gallon buckets, drilled holes added some rocks on the bottom, soil and fertilizer and lucky him we found red tomato cages at Lowes. I said you should get 🍅where you see a flower. Well every day he would jump out of bed in the morning to check on his 🍅 no flowers. But yesterday I heard a scream Mom I have flowers please tell Miss Carla❤ With 9 plants he will have enough 🍅for everyone in Berwyn 2😅😆😂🥰
The Nugget Gardner“

Can I tell you what that means to me? I love that this kid is enjoying his gardening. He also made me smile because I remember when I was younger than him and I planted my first tomato plant with my Pop Pop. It was a Roma plum tomato. I checked those plants every day, probably twice a day for growth, flowers, and so on. And that was the crazy tomato plant where a few fruits grew together and it looked like a red baseball mitt!

Gardening is so good for all of us. It really is. I wish we could get our own not so little kid interested. But he is only interested in video games and you can’t even get him to help in the garden. I get excited when he goes outside and sits in it.

Then there is my friend Teri. Gardening became a pandemic project, because she and her husband are busy professionals and finally had the time. So first (like any good friend), I got her hooked on Monty Don and BBC Gardeners’ World.

Teri had never gardened, and well, what she has done is amazing! A small cutting garden, a veg patch, and her very own tiny “jewel garden”:

Yesterday Teri posted her garden for the first time and said:

“I’m a first time gardener so I am pretty pleased with what we’ve created this year. My inspiration came from the awesome Monty Don, Carol Klein, and the rest of the team from the BBC’s Gardeners’ World (and my friend Carla!)“

This is so cool to me when people start gardening! It makes me happy! Also making me happy today? My own tomato and pepper plants. I love growing both. I grow chili peppers, not regular sweet peppers. The weather has been brutally hot and they are coming along like champs. Right now I am doing my mental rain dance because the rain literally keeps passing us by and it’s still baking outside.

Oh and for those of you who think Bambi never visits? Ummm yeah, someone had a bit of a daylily nibble the other day so I refreshed my deer repellant (I use Plant Skydd, Deer Out, and Deer Scram — I alternate.)

Happy gardening!!