Modern life has disconnected us from many of these seasonal cues. We can buy tomatoes in January, strawberries in October, and lettuce in the dog days of summer. It’s easy to move through the year without noticing its subtle transitions.

This is one of the many reasons I love gardening. It makes me more acutely aware of the passage of time. I know, for example, that my peppers will finally surge with growth and my tomatoes will begin craving shade when the June heat arrives. I know aphids will appear almost like clockwork when spring ushers in lush leafy greens. I know I’ll be picking ripe peaches near my birthday and harvesting pomegranates in October.

I can map my year by the weeds and pests that emerge, what’s filling my harvest basket, and which seeds are tucked into my pockets. If I had my way, I’d delete Google Calendar and follow garden time instead.

Of course, I can’t entirely dismiss modern life. It has brought us advances in medicine, air conditioning, air travel, and the internet—without which you would not be reading these words.

Still, I think it would do us all good to pay closer attention to nature’s timeline. In that sense, gardening goes beyond growing plants and becomes a way of recovering an older relationship with time—one that is slower, more observant, and more attuned to the world beyond our screens and schedules. It reminds us that we are part of the seasons, not separate from them.

Your timeline in the garden will be different from mine, depending on where in the world you live. Every patch of soil is unique, and every gardener’s experience will be, too. Conditions vary from one garden to the next: how the sun moves across the sky, where the wind blows in from, how much rain falls, the type of soil beneath your feet, and the countless microclimates that create pockets of heat and cool.

I can tell you how to build soil, which plant varieties to try, and when to plant them, but only you can become intimately familiar with your own space.

Spend time in your garden. Be patient as you build a relationship with it because it is a living, breathing ecosystem. Notice when the wild birds arrive each spring to feast on fruit and seed-bearing plants. Take note of when the butterflies drift in on the breeze to feed from blooms and lay eggs on host plants, hiding in plain sight. Breathe in the fresh smell of coming summer storm.

In time, you will become connected to the seasons. You will learn to measure the year not by dates on a calendar, but by flowers, harvests, migrating birds, and summer storms. You will begin to recognize the familiar rhythms and anticipate them like the return of an old friend. The garden will teach you to pay attention, and in paying attention, you’ll discover something increasingly rare in modern life: a deep sense of connection to the land and the living things around you—a world to which we have always belonged. For me, this is the true magic of gardening.

I pulled an old shoebox down from a high shelf, its corners reinforced with masking tape and the lid coated in years of dust. A musty scent, like an old basement, rose as I opened it. Inside was a stack of postcards. Judging from the artwork on the front, they were old. I turned one over and saw my grandmother’s signature at the bottom. She had written to my mother while visiting the Grand Canyon, not about anything particularly important. In neat, old-fashioned cursive, she described the weather, what they’d eaten that day, and the sights they had seen.

What a different practice from what is common for us today: spending time on vacation choosing a postcard, sitting down to write a short message, and going to the post office to mail it to someone you love. Sure, we send quick texts and emails now, but they cost us little more than a few seconds of our attention. A postcard feels different—more intentional. It’s a small act of saying, “I thought of you while I was away and wanted to share this with you.”

I know life is different these days—busier, more stressful, and more technologically advanced. But I found myself wondering: How would it feel to open my mailbox and find a handwritten card from someone who took the time to send it? And what would I want someone else to feel if I sent one to them?

The neatly written words on that dusty postcard from 1978 meant something to my mother; enough that she carefully tucked it away and kept it safe for nearly fifty years. I think my grandmother’s gesture made her feel remembered, included, and loved. And I think a note sent today, whether short or long, would still carry the very same message.

Why am I writing about this?

Because I think the sharing and writing that happens here on Substack is a little like the old practice of sending letters and postcards. It’s the deliberate act of sitting down to share moments that matter. I may be writing about the wonders and woes of growing tomatoes in the desert, while you may be writing about a new city you’re visiting or a small moment from your own ordinary life. These little messages offer glimpses into our days and give us the opportunity to share them with one another.

This small reminder from the past confirmed something I’ve been thinking about for a while: the meaning is often found in the little details that don’t seem important at all. I’ve often wondered whether anyone really cares about the longhorn bee visiting my cosmos all week, or the ravens that hold their morning meetings atop the old cypress trees in the garden, or the fact that I preserved sixty-five pounds of peaches in my little kitchen. But I think people do care. I know I care about the stories you share from your own lives, and I love sharing mine, too.

So I’m going to keep writing this little desert diary about the things that feel meaningful to me. And I’m going to keep reading the things you choose to share as well. Because those ordinary moments that seem like nothing are actually quite something indeed.

They are what knit us together in this shared human experience.

I should begin my posts with “Dear Friend” and end them with “Until next time,” because that would make them feel even more like a letter or postcard from my little neck of the woods to yours.

So until next time,

Love,

Here I am now, in front of the kitchen window, working on a sink full of peaches demanding my attention. Beyond the glass, I can see the little tree that gave me these 65 pounds of fruit, looking lighter and happier now that she’s been relieved of her burden.

TJ brought home the little Desert Gold peach tree as a surprise gift. I’d been wanting one for a long time, and he managed to find the very last tree of the season at a nursery. It was oddly shaped and clearly overlooked by previous shoppers, but I didn’t mind its imperfections. I planted it right away and rigged up some creative support to help encourage it to grow straighter.

The little peach tree responded well to my garden scoliosis treatments and rewarded me the following summer with a bowlful of vibrant orange-pink peaches just in time for my birthday.

This year, though, the tree far exceeded my expectations. I should have thinned the fruit, and I told everyone who saw its branches bowing under the weight that I had neglected to do so. That was only partially true. I hadn’t forgotten — I simply couldn’t bring myself to pluck off those tiny fuzzy peaches.

As the fruit began to swell, I realized my mistake and started worrying the branches would snap under the weight. Miraculously, they held.

I spent the Sunday of my birthday weekend standing beneath the branches with a bucket, carefully picking peach after peach. One bucket, then two, then three. The peaches just kept coming. I weighed every harvest and kept track because I already knew I’d want to share the final number with everyone later.

In the end, my little Desert Gold peach tree produced 65 pounds of fruit. Sure, the peaches were smaller because I hadn’t thinned them, but they were perfect in their own way: blemish-free, sweet, and tangy, with juice that dribbled down my chin with every bite.

And here I am now, making peach butter, peach preserves, dehydrated peaches, canned peaches, and peach ice cream. Of all the things I’ve made, the ice cream makes me think most of my mother. She loved peach ice cream and would get so excited when a Southwestern Ohio dairy (where I grew up), United Dairy Farmers (UDF), would announce that its peach ice cream was finally available for the season. If I happened to be visiting home when it arrived, I’d stop to pick up a pint and bring it back to surprise her. She’s been gone for nearly a year now, and somehow making peach ice cream for my birthday feels like the perfect way to honor her memory.

The fear of my little peach tree breaking under the weight of too much fruit taught me a lesson, and next spring, I won’t neglect thinning again. The garden always seems to have something new to teach me. Now that the peach harvest is over and I’m nearly finished preserving it all, the apples are beginning to blush, the grapes are almost ready, and the pomegranates wait patiently for the shortening days of fall.

These days are long and tiring as I try to keep up with the steady abundance of fresh produce, but they are also the very things my dreams were once made of. How sweet it is and how grateful I am to be living them now.

I’ve always been a voracious reader, getting lost in real paper pages, captivated by the meanings of words, and amazed by how beautifully someone could arrange their thoughts on a page. Like most people, I have plenty of opinions and observations rattling around in my mind, and as I got older, I dreamed of putting those thoughts out into the world just like the authors I admired so deeply.

There is a particular joy in sharing lovely things, both for the giver and the receiver.

I didn’t grow up in a family that easily verbalized feelings. We showed love through acts of service, through reliability and presence, but words? Heavens no. Good writers and speakers make communication look effortless, but practicing those arts myself taught me how much labor sits beneath clarity. Any counselor will tell you that good communication is a skill learned through consistent practice. Not to perfect, but to hammer into something digestible, understandable, relatable, even desirable. It’s real work, and it takes courage to put the contents of your mind and heart out there for anyone to see.

Another Voice Online

In a world of blogs, YouTube videos, Instagram posts, podcasts, and now Substack — which I love — there are very few quiet corners left. Voices and screens offer endless information for every imaginable interest. On those platforms, humble accounts have evolved into influencers who will teach you how to grow the perfect tomato, live in a van, finally find that elusive pair of jeans to fit your weird unique shape, become a vegan, travel the world, or paint a portrait.

So why do so many of us still want to add our own voices to this hurricane?

I’ll be brave enough to raise my hand and say, “Me too.”

A decade ago, I started a little blog about saving money. We were deep in the trenches of child-rearing, which for us meant a budget that always felt too small. I wrote about meal planning, grocery shopping, recipes, hanging laundry to dry, saving for the future, and whatever else occupied my thoughts at the time. It wasn’t unique or widely read, and I certainly wasn’t consistent, but it was a beginning.

Later, I started a YouTube channel — first about gardening in tiny spaces, because that was the season of life I was in, and eventually about gardening in the Southwest.

Along the way, I worked for the Master Gardeners in my county, creating videos and publications. I spent two years writing a gardening column for a local magazine. Those experiences were rewarding in their own way, but eventually I wanted more space to improve my skills, reach more people, and build something that belonged to me. I wanted to earn a living sharing what I loved.

This feels vulnerable to say, because I think we’ve all had moments of eye-rolling when we learned about so-and-so starting a podcast or a vlog. Another voice added to the noise.

When Creation Becomes Performance

A little more than two years ago, I decided to get serious. This was no longer going to be a casual hobby for me. I was going for it.

And I did.

I stopped writing for other people and started writing for myself. I spent hours planning, filming, editing videos, and crafting social media posts. The outcome, though, was disappointing. Growth was slow. Engagement was low. The space already felt full — a lesson countless creators had learned before me.

I used to enjoy scrolling at the bookends of my day to see what my favorite accounts were up to, but eventually I noticed many of them chasing the same trends I was. Lip-syncing to silly audio. Dancing in the garden to ridiculous music. Daily stories. POV videos. Live streams. Informative carousels. Endless reposting.

And on and on.

Now I see more advertisements than creators in my feed. The people I genuinely want to hear from are still out there making beautiful and meaningful things, but that work often isn’t shown because it isn’t what maximizes profit. We are all being tossed around by shifting algorithms, trying to do “the right things,” yet so much of that labor seems designed less to strengthen communities than to feed platforms and corporations.

It no longer feels rooted in joy, information, or connection. Increasingly, it feels rooted in performance.

And I am tired.

I no longer leave social media feeling inspired or connected. Most days, I leave feeling depleted.

Returning to Books

Why are we all doing this?

Why am I doing this?

It’s a question I’ve been mulling over for months now. I’ve slowed down on creating, choosing instead to post what I want without obsessing over the outcome. And in the middle of all that questioning, I found myself returning to an old comfort: reading.

I’ve been pulling familiar titles from my shelves, books I haven’t touched in years, and opening them feels like sitting down with an old friend. In doing so, I’ve slowly begun to formulate an answer to that nagging question.

Mentorship.

The Mentors Who Changed My Life

I’ll speak in gardener’s terms because that is what I am.

The authors and creators who guided my gardening journey changed my life. They gave me hope when all I had was a pot of basil on a windowsill. They taught me how to choose container varieties for small spaces, how to start seeds, succession plant, compost, and understand soil science. They encouraged me to keep growing and keep hoping when I thought that tiny balcony garden was all I would ever have.

They highlighted community gardens. They explained how anyone could possibly grow food in the desert. They taught me history. They carried me into far-flung gardens I otherwise never would have seen.

Most importantly, they connected the lessons gardens teach us with real life.

Mentors matter. They may exist on your bookshelf, in your internet feed, or at your local nonprofit. You don’t have to have dirt under your fingernails or tomato hands stained green; maybe that’s not your thing. The voices you invite into your life will shape your mind and heart. They will encourage you, challenge you, and fuel your hopes.

Maybe it’s hubris to believe my small voice might carry through all this noise and reach someone who needs it, but I hope it does. It feels important to take all that was poured into me by the voices that once reached my ears and pass it along to someone else who may need encouragement, too.

Why I’m Still Here

The idea that this thing I do — sharing gardening online — does not have to be wildly profitable feels freeing.

I don’t have to perform for algorithms or fight to capture someone’s attention in two seconds flat. I don’t have to chase trending audio or craft the perfect hook. I can simply talk about what I love and trust that the people who are part of this wonderful gardening community will find their way to it.

I’m not quitting, but I am reshaping my goals around my mission rather than an algorithm. I want to spend more time creating things that feel meaningful to me and, hopefully, valuable to others. I want to spend more time writing and creating on my own terms.

It seems to me that what the world needs most is people willing to invest in one another.

So yes — there will be much more Substack writing from me.

I hope you’ll join me.

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Every summer has its stars. Some years it’s the watermelon that splits sweet and perfect with the slightest touch. Other years, it’s the peppers that glow like lanterns in the heat. But this year? The tomatoes stole the show.

There’s something about a tomato ripened in the heat of summer that makes you forgive the desert for being so harsh. Each bite is a reminder: the season is fleeting, the flavors won’t last, and you’d better savor every slice.

I approach my garden as a laboratory experiment for every season. I try new soil-building techniques and ways to conserve water. I plant flowers the way some people stock a bar—so every insect in town has a reason to drop by. I rig up shade contraptions worthy of a desert circus, all in the name of protecting my plants from sunburn. But what I love most is letting curiosity guide my seed choices—always searching for new varieties to add to my favorites list.

So here are some of my favorite tomato darlings of summer:

Thorburn’s Terra Cotta is a tomato that practically glows in the garden, with warm honey-brown skin. The medium-sized fruit carries a subtle sweetness along with a lightly earthy flavor. The plant is a generous producer, giving fruit that’s as beautiful on the vine as it is on the plate. New to me this year, and I’ve quickly added it to my favorites list.

Moonglow Tomato is the golden hour in fruit form. These radiant fruits glow like little suns among the vines, their smooth skin and firm flesh making them as pleasing to the eye as to the palate.

With a mild sweetness and a meaty texture, they're perfect for slicing, roasting, or adding a pop of color to any dish. Just look at the texture in the photo above. Beautiful, yes? Moonglow took a little break during the hottest part of the summer, but she’s setting more fruit at the opening of September.

Cream Sausage Tomato is a chubby little charmer, with pale, buttery skin. Its flavor is light and just a touch sweet, unlike the bold tomato flavor of other varieties. But the juiciness and generous yield make it impossible to resist. These creamy, mellow fruits contrast beautifully with the more assertive tomatoes. The firm, meaty flesh makes it perfect for fresh sandwiches or just snacking straight from the vine. I roasted several pans with some garlic, olive oil, and sea salt, which resulted in some very delicious golden tomato sauce. I like this determinate variety and it’s now on the list, too.

Costoluto Genovese is a classic Italian heirloom with ribbed, deep-red fruit. Its got a robust tomato flavor that I think is just as suited for sandwiches as for sauces, or roasting. It was prolific, even during the hottest part of summer, and the plants are continuing to produce now in September. This is the first time I’ve grown it, and, you guessed it, it’s earned a spot on my favorites list.

Apricot Zebra Tomato has bright apricot skin striped in delicate golden streaks. Sweet, tangy, and bursting with juice, each bite is a little burst of summer sunshine. Perfect for snacking or salads, these cheerful little fruits are as delightful to grow as they are to eat. This one has been on my favorites list for 3 seasons now, and I keep wondering if it will fall from grace at some point. Not this year. It’s still a keeper.

Now that I’ve reviewed these photos, I see a golden pattern in some of the winners. Yes, most are yellow or orange, but I promise you there were several ruby show stoppers, too.

I did a full Tomato Taste Test of some of these and other varieties on my YouTube channel. If you’re interested, you can follow this link.

I hope you’re making a tomato wish list for next season. I know we haven’t even had our first frost yet, but seed starting in December will be here before you know it. What were your favorite tomatoes this year?