I've been here since the beginning. Your babies were babies, now they are all so grown. You are an inspiration,a teacher, and a mentor. You are a sister in faith, and a faithful friend. I wonder if you know what you mean to so many of us. You show up just as we need you. You share your farm, gardens, family, and meals. You share your life ventures and adventures. You share your dreams and allow us to dream bigger. You share your poetic soul,your heart and all of the emotions that come with that. I have shared in your faith,laughter,and tears. You share you. You are like a little sister I can count on. As long as you show up, I will be here. I will be in the back ground quietly cheering you on. ❤
Let me echo this sentiment. It was very well said and what I intended to say when I opened my app, only she said it a little better. When I started watching Ben was pretty little. He followed you around, kinda like a puppy. It was adorable having all girls myself. It was totally foreign to me. What an adventure it was to raise boys! I have always loved that you and Miah show what it’s like to raise a family to serve God, serve each other, and serve his people. That’s what we’re called to do and you’ve done that in front of a camera for the world to see. I know your intention was to show gardening to the world, but you have shown so much more. You didn’t preach and tell us what to do. You just showed us by living your life. So many people are raised in families that are unhealthy. I love that they can turn this on to get gardening advice and knowledge served with a side of how a healthy family walks out life together in a healthy way. It’s hard, sometimes it’s really hard but at the end of the day we glorify God. He is faithful. Thank you for never bending on that point. Also, thank you for always approaching the garden with an attitude that shows I can do it and if I can do it, you can too. In the beginning, that’s why I kept watching. There were so many people who would say to me say I could never do that. That’s so hard. I don’t have time , how do you find time to do that? I take great encouragement from your garden tours. Thank you. I’m excited that you’re getting back to what brings you the most joy because your joy spills out through the screen to me and fills my cup. That sounds a little selfish. But I’m probably not the only one who feels that way. And I think that’s the way God made us. Happiness spreads the same way bad attitudes and anger spread. Thank you for sharing your joy and love of creation with us. Much love and many prayers, Jenni
Jess, here is my letter to you, as a long time lover of your channel. I just want you to know that throughout all of these years, you have motivated and inspired me to be the gardener that I am today. You spoke to the beauty and not the fear, which moved me in a way that words can't quite describe. You eloquently talked me through the failures and wooed my heart to find peace and beauty in the quiet moments. I have times in the garden where I thank the lord for leading me to your channel, for showing me not the preparation but the love. Moments where my squash all might be dying, and there's aphids on the peppers, and I'm looking like a bedraggled swamp creature in the heat of the summer plucking what feels like every weed in existence, but because of you, I stop and think "wow how beautiful are those butterflies on the borage" or take a moment to appreciate my hands in fertile soil while the sun smiles down on me or just rejoice in my little dream coming to fruition as I pluck a pretty basket of cherry tomatoes. In those moments I think of you and thank you for teaching me to truly love the beauty and peace that is my garden 💜 I love that you are getting back to your roots, because your channel is the refuge that helped nurture my little gardeners soul.
Optimistic Jess! “You can do it” !!!! I have encouraged many a new gardener with this spoken with love. Ben was a tiny tot when i found you- we share so many thoughts, it sometimes makes me think we are related somehow. Your soil sister- Linda ❤
The cow basically said "yaaas" when you declared you are growing a garden for yourself. I think that's exactly how we all feel! I can't wait to see the videos of a beaming Jess knee deep in HER favourite things. ❤️
I’m so happy you are going through this revelation about your why. I’ve so missed your earlier garden tours and strolls. I say this with all the love and respect I have, but I have felt the shift in your passion. I miss your joy and excitement and awe when you were just doing this for yourself. It’s what made me fall in love with gardening and take the leap to do this myself many years ago now. I know this is your job, but you still deserve to feel the same connection to your garden without the pressure to appease an audience. I honestly think doing things just for you (your heart garden) will draw more people in and continue to inspire just as much if not more 💚
This year my goal is to make my garden magical for my kids to want to get lost in... Peter Rabbit vibes. I'm creating a big long cattle panel tunnel with a bunch of pumpkins and squash and cucumbers and cherry tomatoes, all dangling down as you walk through. I want to add solar fairy lights and fairy houses, doors, figures, etc.. just special little things for them to find and get excited about. I want wind chimes and bird feeders and homemade stepping stones with colorful gems. I want to paint bricks to look like book covers. I plan to grow all the colorful things like purple and orange cauliflower, candy striped sweet peppers, fluffy teddy bear sunflowers, and pastel pink cinderella zinnias. I want my garden to feel like you just walked into a fairy tale.
I love this! One year, I made a teepee from bamboo and planted pole beans on it, with an opening for my daughter. At 40, she still talks about what a magical place it was in our tiny suburban yard.
I love these ideas ❤ my daughter will be 3 1/2 this garden season and I really want to start instilling a love of gardening in her, I never thought about adding little creative treasures for her to find. Thank you for sharing ❤
Love that. My fondest garden memories include my babies. If you’re not allergic, decorate a bee waterer! Super fun for small kids to decorate and gives the bee a place to rest. Just a simple terracotta pot and glue the saucer to the top is a cheap option!
When you first said, "I'm going to grow the things I love!", your voice broke just a little. And we truly understood how very much you have needed to do this. May this be your most wonderful gardening year ever!
I’ve been watching your videos since Ben was a baby. I’m glad to hear you say you’re going back to your happy heart garden 😊 It is my pleasure to see your joy.
I miss the very beginnings of the Arkansas garden; all were so innocent and excited. We were learning together. Now, it's an honor and privilege to have watched and continue to watch the growth of the family and the farm. The excitement continues to be contagious and many times, the content and its messaging, lifesaving. Thank you Jess for everything.
I so feel this. Last fall I decided for this year, I want any easy garden that I can just enjoy the beauty of. I'm cutting way back on veggies and am going to do aleast half of it in flowers. I want this year's to be a feast for the eyes I stead of the belly.
I loved this video. I think this applies to folks everywhere, particularly ladies. My why, I want to make my wife (rest her soul) proud, and take care of it in a way worthy of what she would have done. Blessings to both you and your family, and thank you. God bless.
So sorry for your loss. I am sure your wife is looking down on you working and maintaining the garden she loved and IS very proud of you. I hope that continuing to work y’all’s garden brings you peace and happiness and affords you the opportunity to feel close to her in her absence. God bless and keep you.
0:45 I found you in spring of 2018 when I was researching content on different options for making my own raised beds, wanting to grow food for my family. I ended up choosing in-ground gardening in the end, but I have kept up with your channel and also have watched all or nearly all of your content right from your beginning days. Your channel is my number one favourite on RUclips…The Farmer’s Table one too. And Miah’s Workshop. I kinda think of the three as one channel with different outlets.😅 You don’t know me, but to me it feels like we’re friends. Thank you for sharing your heart in this space. Hi from BC Canada🇨🇦👋
Jess: "I'm growing a garden for myself." Cow: "Moooooooooooooooo". Cow translation: "YAY! You go girl!!!" 😂😂😂Timing is EVERYTHING! 😂 Honestly, I'm happy for you. I've been in those "spaces" too where I felt I needed to grow for a year's supply, etc. Now that I'll be 70 this year I'm in a different place where gardening has changed completely. We still grow in a few raised beds....6 total, but now I've picked up our 2nd Greenstalk. I'll be transitioning mostly to Greenstalk growing and add more of them the next couple of years. Gardening will always be part of my life, just will transition as needed.
I’ve been watching your channel for 7 years now, since my oldest was born and I started researching food. You’ve taught me so much! Gardening, homesteading, animal husbandry, cooking, and have helped deepen my devotionals. I so appreciate you and your beautiful family.
🥰 When you started talking today, I was thinking about your trellises in the old garden. I loved those & the old garden door in your early videos. Thrilled we will see them again. Thank you for sharing your life with us!
This year my "why" is to learn to be a gardener. I just want to dip my toe in and see how it goes. I have been watching your channel for a couple of years now, yearning for the opportunity to start my own gardening journey, and now having finally returned from going to school abroad, I am back in my family home where I have the space to try. I will be confined to what the nursery offers in terms of plant starts for now, and am bracing myself for setbacks from squirrels and pests, but I am excited to finally give it a go. Much as I would like a bountiful harvest, my main goals are simply to learn, have a reason to be outside every day, and watch something beautiful grow :)
My why this year is all about the flowers. My daughters light up with such joy when the flowers bloom and they can bring in a bouquet for our table and I want to foster that joy as much as I can. Fostering joy in my children in the garden is always my over arching goal.
I’m scaling way back in the garden. I’m going to manage my fruits better and maybe add some quail to the picture. Your sweet introspection always tugs at my heart.
I’m so excited for you and grateful that you share. We all lose ourselves and self correct sometimes. And I am so excited for another garden season with you!
This will be my second season gardening! I'm still in the learning and growing phase. The amount of joy and peace it gave me last season was unmatched, and I can't wait to get back out there again!
I think I was one of your first 5,000 subscribers. You are a big reason why I started gardening and how I continue to learn. You changed my life and I am forever grateful!!! I garden to feel the joy and sorrow of success and failure of growing my own food! We are healthier for eating more food from our backyard! I am mentally healthier for getting out of my own head and play in the soil!
Inspirational as always! Been Following you for 7 years and loved every single moment of it. You have taught me so much and changed the way i look at everything in life. Much Love !
Girl, I have been with you all 8 years! I’m so overjoyed to see you go back to the basics of your garden 😊😍. Watching your very first garden tours , you had joy. I’ll be looking forward to seeing that joy again ❤️
I love this. I found you right before your move to S Carolina, and I can honestly say that what drew me to your channel is your joy and wonder in the garden. I'm looking forward to your rekindled awe of your garden.
I've been here since Hurricane Helene and done some binge watching and intentionally watching the past devotionals. Thank you for sharing your health through your life to this point, to the degree that you have and I'd love an update (is a urethra insert still something you need, the pelvic floor specialist and the changes from that), and expanded to your family cooking channel. I'm a previous flower gardener and vegetable gardener with my Veterans at the Veterans home supporting them and weeding duty, I gardened for my friend with arthritis for years and after my physical injuries became more and more painful, I wasn't able to garden for years and a year and half ago, unable to work. I'm going to see if my avid gardening friend will again set up my GreenStalk but not generously fill it again, but it's a great adapted garden for me, I purchased the spinning base. She didn't put it in the back yard because ide have to go down a whole flight of stairs to get to it, she put it across from my hose spikit, by my front door 😆 on the corner so the side walk is already on two sides so I can sit, and spin the GreenStalk She knew best. I want to challenge it's limits and grow pickling cucumbers and the inedible sweet peas flowers that smell nice, as the Lord wills! Thank you Jess and Commenters for inspiring me!!!
Bless your heart, you have a way about you that helps me see things in a different light. Yes, I’m one of those that wanted the garden to be perfect.😜 My parents gardened to feed their five children and now I garden because I think it lets me feel closer to them somehow. I only have a small backyard space but I sure do love the fresh produce from it. I grow enough to eat fresh and preserve some-perfect! I discovered your channel in 2019 and am a devoted fan. Thank you for all your help.
This will not only be my first garden season watching your channel, but my first garden season ever. My why this year is learning as much as I can, trying new things, and maybe growing some delicious food to feed my family for a couple of months. Seriously considering making an actual sign for the garden fence with my why on it so I can remind myself if I get frustrated throughout the season.
I have been here since the start ar close to it! You have been a great inspiration for my transition from a city girl to a homestead one! You and husband are great inspiration for us here in a way colder climate of Quebec Canada!
Love! Jess, you are such an inspiration. Your videos and perspective are refreshing and make the world brighter. Thank you for sharing your positivity, dreams, projects and endeavors with us! Can’t stop thinking about gardening and am feeling so great about this season. It’s amazing how much there is to learn.
Been here and following for years, and I could definitely tell that in your excitement for your new property and garden, you probably bit off a little more than you can chew, because I have done the exact same thing, many times with many other things. I love dogs, so I wound up with 6 of them, I enjoyed chickens and somehow wound up with 100 of them, and with the garden, as well- though on a smaller scale than you. I am SO excited for you to recover your love and joy in the garden. I have toned down my chickens to a reasonable number and limited myself to two beds of tomatoes this year, so I can certainly identify with downsizing and simplifying to reclaim joy and peace. This will be the BEST year yet! Sending love from Georgia!!!
I love your dream for this year’s garden Jess!!! I too plan to be very intentional about growing my favorites and simplifying a little bit. No matter what you do, you always educate & inspire!!! Excited to see how it grows!❤
I want you to know that I stumbled on your build an arched trellis video, I think 6 years ago, and wow!! My girl! Where you have taken my garden journey, what you and sweet Miah have accomplished on your garden journey. Love your Spirit, love your inspirations and I love seeing you continue to grow and share your successes and your failures. Thank you!
Oh did this ever speak to me and exactly what i really needed to hear! 15:15 into the video you said "yeahh Im growing a garden for myself" one of your cows bellowed out a MOOO it was like a trumpet! Powerful and totally made me smile big! xo
You've helped inspire my momma heart today. My special needs son will need to be brought home in the fall to homeschool (he's in a wonderful private school now) and hearing your homeschool goals and process is helping encourage me to find my son's "heart garden" and meet him where he's at now. I can do this. I will do this. It's absolutely possible and he will thrive in his special education. If you can do it, so can I. Thank you for encouraging my heart today. Everything will be okay!
I’ve been here from the beginning. I to am not in a rush this year. Not sure if I’ll be able to plant because of my health. I say that with a heavy heart. I do know I can garden vicariously through you & your channel. Thank you
I started watching you in 2020 when I decided I wanted to be able to grow food for food security. I lived in regular city house and I was so jealous of those who had the space to really grow! I listened to you and I used my waiting room as a classroom. This is my first year on my new homestead! There isn’t a garden to be seen so I have to build it all and I couldn’t be more excited! So thank you for all your teaching, it has been invaluable even though I live in the freezing north in Canada! So thank you!
This year will be my first year gardening in my new home. Building a garden felt too overwhelming so I bought a greenstalk (using your discount) and I can't wait to fill it with all kinds of things my kids and husband like! Strawberries, beans, spinach, peppers and herbs! Plus I plan on leaving a feelw spaces open to plant things throughout the season. I am trying not to be too hard on myself about not having a full fledged garden and focus on just growing things fresh, like you said! I LOVE harvesting things fresh for dinner!
Jess, I found your channel and a love for gardening in 2018- I still watch your older videos that inspired me to buy my first pack of seeds and to start growing my own food :) My how far we have all come. Thanks for taking us along on the journey.
Jess, this video really resonated with me. We are moving to our new homestead in late spring and I am most excited to have the space to garden. It’s so easy to want/plan for a ton of garden beds since we have the space but this really helped me sit back and focus on the why. The why isn’t a ton of food but to learn and enjoy our new space. Love the message. Thanks!
Thank you for sharing... been there, done that 🙂 This year, no more... I want to enjoy the growing food and not feel overwelmed...so i will cover up a plot this year and minimize the space we really need... I wish you a wonderfull growing year! Enjoy it and do it for you! greetings from Belgium
I love this Jess. I think things can become that way sometimes, especially when you’re so passionate about it you want to share & the sharing becomes almost demanding & overwhelming. I pray you have an abundantly blessed heart, garden & year. 🙏🏻💕
I found you in 2019 and I'm so happy I did bc you allowed me to find me again. You brought me peace and joy when going through hard things and allowed me to have a garden when I didn't think I could. You helped me to be unapologetically me. Thank you❤
I've watched you for so long and have learned so much from you. On my 4th year and this year my goal is production and focus on what we eat the most. However my daughter has asked me to help her start her first garden of her own which is a small space so will be container gardening. Also my daughter in law and son have asked me to help them start their very first family garden (4 grandbabies) so definitely gonna need lots of production for them. I'm so excited my love for gardening has rooted to my kids.
Hi Jess, my why is still learning to grow something new. For instance I have never ate a home grown Brussel sprout. I am planting what makes me happy. Also teaching my family how to grow their own food. I want to grow what makes me happy, like grown flowers.
Jess! I've been watching you for 6-ish years. I've learned so much from your videos, had some good gardens in the beginning, but in the last three years, I've started gardens, just to lose a loved one and let them become neglected grief gardens. My why this year is to reclaim the garden to nurture my Ag Sciences kid in turning it into the legacy garden. for food, fun, for flowers.
I resonate with this so much! This will be my 5th season growing a micro cut flower farm in my backyard. In the process of selling the flowers I have lost a lot of the joy. I am planning a similar standard to yours!
I love the plan for your boys. There’s a way that trying to making something easy and fun for them to the extreme takes away some of the joy of hard work, stick-with-it-ness, and service. If you have a good relationship and you tell them what to do with their best interest at heart, there will be literal and metaphorical fruit! Y’all are great
2019 ❤ I am so happy you’re doing this. I hope you receive everything you’re looking for with your garden this year. I still watch your older videos from time to time. They do have that familiar feeling and remind me of my childhood in my grandmothers garden and have that secret garden feeling like my grandmothers garden. Spent so much time in her garden and your videos in your old garden bring back those lovely memories and feelings of gardening with her.
Jess, I have followed you a long time, perhaps from your 2nd year. I must tell you, you join my husband and I for breakfast with every new vlog you issue. It has become quite the ritual and we thoroughly enjoy your company, lol. My 'why' is because I like to grow things and my garden has always been a space of peace, beauty and wonder. This has proved to be the case whether I was living in an apartment with a balcony garden full of pots or now on our large property in the country. We also value the taste that comes with fresh produce from unusual varieties. Oh, and thank you for converting your temperatures to Celcius. It really helps with understanding the temperatures you are experiencing. We will enjoy this ride with you for as long as you let us.
Jess, This is the best thing I have heard in quite awhile. Your love for your garden before you moved to SC was such an uplifting experience everytime I went along for your journey. Your heart felt devotionals spoke loudly to my heart as well. I will be so happy to see that spark back. Im working on finding my spark back as well. The last few years the soil has been terrible and my vegetables failed 2 years in a row it was so depressing. This year I will be alot more careful and I will be moving my beds to make it more of an inspiration rather than just areas to have to cut grass around. Blessings to you for a fantastic year.
This year after expanding my garden last fall, I’m going to make a prettier more finessed garden. And I’m using the seeds I have to start seed starting. Then I’ll buy plants at a local nursery to supplement what I don’t have. I’m going to put flowers and herbs in it. I want to love looking at it as well as loving the veggies produced. This is my 5th year vegetable gardening.
Good video! I smiled at the cow almost responding to you..almost a ya! LOL. I garden because it brings me joy but also because it saves me money - I know this because I figured it out. I can't garden outdoors all year round so putting up food gives me comfort in knowing I have it. However, because of how much I put up the last years, I am drastically downsizing and being intentional about what and how much I plant - there will still be experiments (I have to) but it will be much smaller. The plan in downsizing is that I can solarize parts of the garden to deal with quack grass which will allow me to get some other non gardening projects done. The why is still the same, it just looks different.
This is my sixth year in my garden and your messages are always spot on. Your soul is so beautiful Jess ❤ you inspired me to start and now my whole yard is garden and I have chickens, I’m so happy for you to plant your soul garden again 🎉
Jess I have watched u grow I love how relatable u have always been! You have inspired me to make my waiting room my classroom I am a gardener in a small town in Central Valley California. My brothers and thier families are from Arkansas. It is refreshing to hear you say that u are going back to the things that made you love gardening because I have had the same thoughts about gardening this year
I love the new property and what you have done with it. I do think the same way...just want to eat season abundance. Gardening is just rooted in me too. It's a joy every year when I pick that first ripe tomato.
Last year was really hard for me. I got separated, moved out and I grew a total of 3 tomatoes and a handful of carrots. So this year I’m growing to find my joy again. I love the garden and all the delicious food it brings me. I can’t wait to start my seeds and see where the garden will take me this year!
Thanks Jess. I got so burned out trying to do too much and fighting critters that gave up. It wasn't joyful anymore, so I stopped last summer mid way. Starting again this spring and this message is right on time
My “why” is beauty. My heart wants all the flowers, just for the joy of it.💐 I’ll also plant plenty of food for fresh eating because that’s so tasty and delightful too, but it’s especially the flowers that make my heart sing. They always have, since I was a little girl. What you were saying in this video really resonated with me, even got me a little choked up…planting all your favourites, making it the garden of your heart…yes! I needed that. Last year I felt like I didn’t have ownership of my garden, even though it was me doing all the work. What I had planted…the purpose was for others, not for me. It was fine, but I had lost the joy. I want that back. This season Imma plant all my faves right along with you and see if I can get that feeling of delight back, then I can share from the overflow of my heart and garden instead of it being like a duty, an obligation. (That sounds like a good experiment to me!)
Oh Jess!! This video was so positively inspiring! I’m so excited you’re getting back to the plants to know and love! I cannot wait to see your beautiful plants grow! I’ve been a viewer for 6 years! And I just got married last September in my garden (which is heavily inspired by your garden style) thank you for always inspiring me.
I’ve been with you since 2018… can’t remember if you had 2,000 or 20,000 when I joined your crew. Jess, you have been my inspiration since my early days when my garden was still a dream in my head. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I bless you ❤❤❤
I’m new here! This is my first year with you and surprise, surprise this spring I’ll be planting my first vegetable garden. I’ve been deep in my dreaming stage and have encountered a surprising amount of discouragement from my family. Everyone except my wonderful husband thinks I’m going to fail because I’m too excited and don’t know what I’m doing. But I have you!!! I’ve watched so many videos, taken notes and am starting with a small but eager garden. Two raised beds and a greenstalk. I know I’ll be learning through trial and error but I have faith that it won’t all be a failure thanks to all the wisdom you’ve shared! Here’s to my 2025 revenge garden 😂😂
I haven't been here from the very beginning but quite a few years. You have definitely been here since the beginning of me becoming a gardener as a guiding light to me and I thank you so much for that. I can't wait to see what this year brings in your garden. For me this year I plan to grow more staples, hone in on peppers which are harder in short seasons like ours but a fam fav and so expensive to buy, more perennial foods. I also love growing flowers. An unplanned gift from the garden has been being able to supply fresh flowers on our altar at church every Sunday during the growing season. I would love to expand that into using some to fund raise for our small church, as well. Bless you and happy planning!
I've been here since the beginning. Your babies were babies, now they are all so grown. You are an inspiration,a teacher, and a mentor. You are a sister in faith, and a faithful friend. I wonder if you know what you mean to so many of us. You show up just as we need you. You share your farm, gardens, family, and meals. You share your life ventures and adventures. You share your dreams and allow us to dream bigger. You share your poetic soul,your heart and all of the emotions that come with that. I have shared in your faith,laughter,and tears. You share you. You are like a little sister I can count on. As long as you show up, I will be here. I will be in the back ground quietly cheering you on. ❤
You said so beautifully what i was thinking! Thank you!❤
Let me echo this sentiment. It was very well said and what I intended to say when I opened my app, only she said it a little better.
When I started watching Ben was pretty little. He followed you around, kinda like a puppy. It was adorable having all girls myself. It was totally foreign to me. What an adventure it was to raise boys! I have always loved that you and Miah show what it’s like to raise a family to serve God, serve each other, and serve his people. That’s what we’re called to do and you’ve done that in front of a camera for the world to see. I know your intention was to show gardening to the world, but you have shown so much more. You didn’t preach and tell us what to do. You just showed us by living your life.
So many people are raised in families that are unhealthy. I love that they can turn this on to get gardening advice and knowledge served with a side of how a healthy family walks out life together in a healthy way. It’s hard, sometimes it’s really hard but at the end of the day we glorify God. He is faithful. Thank you for never bending on that point.
Also, thank you for always approaching the garden with an attitude that shows I can do it and if I can do it, you can too. In the beginning, that’s why I kept watching. There were so many people who would say to me say I could never do that. That’s so hard. I don’t have time , how do you find time to do that? I take great encouragement from your garden tours. Thank you.
I’m excited that you’re getting back to what brings you the most joy because your joy spills out through the screen to me and fills my cup. That sounds a little selfish. But I’m probably not the only one who feels that way. And I think that’s the way God made us. Happiness spreads the same way bad attitudes and anger spread. Thank you for sharing your joy and love of creation with us.
Much love and many prayers, Jenni
@@stephanieg5195agreed!!
Well said 😊
Agreed!!!
Jess, here is my letter to you, as a long time lover of your channel. I just want you to know that throughout all of these years, you have motivated and inspired me to be the gardener that I am today. You spoke to the beauty and not the fear, which moved me in a way that words can't quite describe. You eloquently talked me through the failures and wooed my heart to find peace and beauty in the quiet moments. I have times in the garden where I thank the lord for leading me to your channel, for showing me not the preparation but the love. Moments where my squash all might be dying, and there's aphids on the peppers, and I'm looking like a bedraggled swamp creature in the heat of the summer plucking what feels like every weed in existence, but because of you, I stop and think "wow how beautiful are those butterflies on the borage" or take a moment to appreciate my hands in fertile soil while the sun smiles down on me or just rejoice in my little dream coming to fruition as I pluck a pretty basket of cherry tomatoes. In those moments I think of you and thank you for teaching me to truly love the beauty and peace that is my garden 💜 I love that you are getting back to your roots, because your channel is the refuge that helped nurture my little gardeners soul.
Thank you for sharing your journey with me, that is so incredibly kind of you to say.
No one could have said it better
Optimistic Jess! “You can do it” !!!! I have encouraged many a new gardener with this spoken with love. Ben was a tiny tot when i found you- we share so many thoughts, it sometimes makes me think we are related somehow.
Your soil sister- Linda ❤
This was so beautifully said, I feel so similarly.
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The cow basically said "yaaas" when you declared you are growing a garden for yourself. I think that's exactly how we all feel! I can't wait to see the videos of a beaming Jess knee deep in HER favourite things. ❤️
I’m so happy you are going through this revelation about your why. I’ve so missed your earlier garden tours and strolls. I say this with all the love and respect I have, but I have felt the shift in your passion. I miss your joy and excitement and awe when you were just doing this for yourself. It’s what made me fall in love with gardening and take the leap to do this myself many years ago now. I know this is your job, but you still deserve to feel the same connection to your garden without the pressure to appease an audience. I honestly think doing things just for you (your heart garden) will draw more people in and continue to inspire just as much if not more 💚
💯👍Agreed!
This year my goal is to make my garden magical for my kids to want to get lost in... Peter Rabbit vibes. I'm creating a big long cattle panel tunnel with a bunch of pumpkins and squash and cucumbers and cherry tomatoes, all dangling down as you walk through. I want to add solar fairy lights and fairy houses, doors, figures, etc.. just special little things for them to find and get excited about. I want wind chimes and bird feeders and homemade stepping stones with colorful gems. I want to paint bricks to look like book covers. I plan to grow all the colorful things like purple and orange cauliflower, candy striped sweet peppers, fluffy teddy bear sunflowers, and pastel pink cinderella zinnias. I want my garden to feel like you just walked into a fairy tale.
I love this! One year, I made a teepee from bamboo and planted pole beans on it, with an opening for my daughter. At 40, she still talks about what a magical place it was in our tiny suburban yard.
I love these ideas ❤ my daughter will be 3 1/2 this garden season and I really want to start instilling a love of gardening in her, I never thought about adding little creative treasures for her to find. Thank you for sharing ❤
@@suewhalen3919this is such an amazing idea ❤
Love that. My fondest garden memories include my babies. If you’re not allergic, decorate a bee waterer! Super fun for small kids to decorate and gives the bee a place to rest. Just a simple terracotta pot and glue the saucer to the top is a cheap option!
When you first said, "I'm going to grow the things I love!", your voice broke just a little. And we truly understood how very much you have needed to do this. May this be your most wonderful gardening year ever!
I’ve been watching your videos since Ben was a baby. I’m glad to hear you say you’re going back to your happy heart garden 😊 It is my pleasure to see your joy.
I miss the very beginnings of the Arkansas garden; all were so innocent and excited. We were learning together. Now, it's an honor and privilege to have watched and continue to watch the growth of the family and the farm. The excitement continues to be contagious and many times, the content and its messaging, lifesaving. Thank you Jess for everything.
You have so encouraged me in knowing my “why” in so many areas in life!
I’ve been watching you for 5 years. ❤ I’ve learned so much and enjoy your books and watching your family grow. Thanks for sharing. ❤
Jess, I love your honesty! You do your garden FOR YOU! And we are privileged to come along! Thank you!
I so feel this. Last fall I decided for this year, I want any easy garden that I can just enjoy the beauty of. I'm cutting way back on veggies and am going to do aleast half of it in flowers. I want this year's to be a feast for the eyes I stead of the belly.
I loved this video. I think this applies to folks everywhere, particularly ladies.
My why, I want to make my wife (rest her soul) proud, and take care of it in a way worthy of what she would have done.
Blessings to both you and your family, and thank you. God bless.
So sorry for your loss. I am sure your wife is looking down on you working and maintaining the garden she loved and IS very proud of you. I hope that continuing to work y’all’s garden brings you peace and happiness and affords you the opportunity to feel close to her in her absence. God bless and keep you.
@@Mimi-inthemiddle I appreciate that, thank you so much. I pray you and your family are well also. God bless.
Thank you for sharing, Marcus. Bless you and your garden.
@@BarnAndBeach Much appreciated and God bless.
0:45 I found you in spring of 2018 when I was researching content on different options for making my own raised beds, wanting to grow food for my family. I ended up choosing in-ground gardening in the end, but I have kept up with your channel and also have watched all or nearly all of your content right from your beginning days. Your channel is my number one favourite on RUclips…The Farmer’s Table one too. And Miah’s Workshop. I kinda think of the three as one channel with different outlets.😅
You don’t know me, but to me it feels like we’re friends. Thank you for sharing your heart in this space.
Hi from BC Canada🇨🇦👋
I still go back and laugh when in your first few tours you go " you might not want to see this" 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 we all want to see it
Jess: "I'm growing a garden for myself." Cow: "Moooooooooooooooo". Cow translation: "YAY! You go girl!!!" 😂😂😂Timing is EVERYTHING! 😂
Honestly, I'm happy for you. I've been in those "spaces" too where I felt I needed to grow for a year's supply, etc. Now that I'll be 70 this year I'm in a different place where gardening has changed completely. We still grow in a few raised beds....6 total, but now I've picked up our 2nd Greenstalk. I'll be transitioning mostly to Greenstalk growing and add more of them the next couple of years. Gardening will always be part of my life, just will transition as needed.
I thought the same thing! That cow was like "Amen, girl!" It made my heart feel good hearing her say that. 💚
I’ve been watching your channel for 7 years now, since my oldest was born and I started researching food. You’ve taught me so much! Gardening, homesteading, animal husbandry, cooking, and have helped deepen my devotionals. I so appreciate you and your beautiful family.
Thank you Jess and Sweet Miah. What you've done for my family and I is unmeasurable!
🥰 When you started talking today, I was thinking about your trellises in the old garden. I loved those & the old garden door in your early videos. Thrilled we will see them again. Thank you for sharing your life with us!
This year my "why" is to learn to be a gardener. I just want to dip my toe in and see how it goes. I have been watching your channel for a couple of years now, yearning for the opportunity to start my own gardening journey, and now having finally returned from going to school abroad, I am back in my family home where I have the space to try. I will be confined to what the nursery offers in terms of plant starts for now, and am bracing myself for setbacks from squirrels and pests, but I am excited to finally give it a go. Much as I would like a bountiful harvest, my main goals are simply to learn, have a reason to be outside every day, and watch something beautiful grow :)
I’ve learned so much from you. You’re a great teacher. ❤
My why this year is all about the flowers. My daughters light up with such joy when the flowers bloom and they can bring in a bouquet for our table and I want to foster that joy as much as I can. Fostering joy in my children in the garden is always my over arching goal.
Looking forward to a joyous gardening year with you. God bless
I’m scaling way back in the garden. I’m going to manage my fruits better and maybe add some quail to the picture. Your sweet introspection always tugs at my heart.
I’m so excited for you and grateful that you share. We all lose ourselves and self correct sometimes. And I am so excited for another garden season with you!
I really love and learn when you teach gardening in depth. You have such a gift for teaching Jess. Thank you.
Love that you are going back to your roots and what brings your heart joy ❤
This will be my second season gardening! I'm still in the learning and growing phase. The amount of joy and peace it gave me last season was unmatched, and I can't wait to get back out there again!
Thank you for sharing all of these inspirational thoughts!
Watching you from the beginning. You are so hopefully, helpful, and real.
I think I was one of your first 5,000 subscribers. You are a big reason why I started gardening and how I continue to learn. You changed my life and I am forever grateful!!! I garden to feel the joy and sorrow of success and failure of growing my own food! We are healthier for eating more food from our backyard! I am mentally healthier for getting out of my own head and play in the soil!
Yes... For me to getting to know tomatoes
Inspirational as always! Been Following you for 7 years and loved every single moment of it. You have taught me so much and changed the way i look at everything in life. Much Love !
Girl, I have been with you all 8 years! I’m so overjoyed to see you go back to the basics of your garden 😊😍. Watching your very first garden tours , you had joy. I’ll be looking forward to seeing that joy again ❤️
you expressed this perfectly. My why is fresh food, exercise, learning, providing for others, and keeping myself busy!
I love this. I found you right before your move to S Carolina, and I can honestly say that what drew me to your channel is your joy and wonder in the garden. I'm looking forward to your rekindled awe of your garden.
Joined and blessed to learn from you since 2018❤ thank you for the garden knowledge and the fuel in my faith.
I've been here since Hurricane Helene and done some binge watching and intentionally watching the past devotionals. Thank you for sharing your health through your life to this point, to the degree that you have and I'd love an update (is a urethra insert still something you need, the pelvic floor specialist and the changes from that), and expanded to your family cooking channel. I'm a previous flower gardener and vegetable gardener with my Veterans at the Veterans home supporting them and weeding duty, I gardened for my friend with arthritis for years and after my physical injuries became more and more painful, I wasn't able to garden for years and a year and half ago, unable to work.
I'm going to see if my avid gardening friend will again set up my GreenStalk but not generously fill it again, but it's a great adapted garden for me, I purchased the spinning base. She didn't put it in the back yard because ide have to go down a whole flight of stairs to get to it, she put it across from my hose spikit, by my front door 😆 on the corner so the side walk is already on two sides so I can sit, and spin the GreenStalk She knew best. I want to challenge it's limits and grow pickling cucumbers and the inedible sweet peas flowers that smell nice, as the Lord wills! Thank you Jess and Commenters for inspiring me!!!
Bless your heart, you have a way about you that helps me see things in a different light. Yes, I’m one of those that wanted the garden to be perfect.😜 My parents gardened to feed their five children and now I garden because I think it lets me feel closer to them somehow. I only have a small backyard space but I sure do love the fresh produce from it. I grow enough to eat fresh and preserve some-perfect! I discovered your channel in 2019 and am a devoted fan. Thank you for all your help.
This will not only be my first garden season watching your channel, but my first garden season ever. My why this year is learning as much as I can, trying new things, and maybe growing some delicious food to feed my family for a couple of months. Seriously considering making an actual sign for the garden fence with my why on it so I can remind myself if I get frustrated throughout the season.
I cant wait to see you love your garden again, your refuge and happy place, its the best of you!
I needed this pep talk 💜💜 I have been in such a funk about gardening and need to love it again.
I have been here since the start ar close to it! You have been a great inspiration for my transition from a city girl to a homestead one! You and husband are great inspiration for us here in a way colder climate of Quebec Canada!
Thank-you Jess
Love! Jess, you are such an inspiration. Your videos and perspective are refreshing and make the world brighter. Thank you for sharing your positivity, dreams, projects and endeavors with us! Can’t stop thinking about gardening and am feeling so great about this season. It’s amazing how much there is to learn.
Been here and following for years, and I could definitely tell that in your excitement for your new property and garden, you probably bit off a little more than you can chew, because I have done the exact same thing, many times with many other things. I love dogs, so I wound up with 6 of them, I enjoyed chickens and somehow wound up with 100 of them, and with the garden, as well- though on a smaller scale than you. I am SO excited for you to recover your love and joy in the garden. I have toned down my chickens to a reasonable number and limited myself to two beds of tomatoes this year, so I can certainly identify with downsizing and simplifying to reclaim joy and peace. This will be the BEST year yet! Sending love from Georgia!!!
I am here with you from the beginning and still can’t wait to see your garden tours and all ❤️
I love your dream for this year’s garden Jess!!! I too plan to be very intentional about growing my favorites and simplifying a little bit. No matter what you do, you always educate & inspire!!! Excited to see how it grows!❤
I want you to know that I stumbled on your build an arched trellis video, I think 6 years ago, and wow!! My girl! Where you have taken my garden journey, what you and sweet Miah have accomplished on your garden journey. Love your Spirit, love your inspirations and I love seeing you continue to grow and share your successes and your failures. Thank you!
Oh did this ever speak to me and exactly what i really needed to hear!
15:15 into the video you said "yeahh Im growing a garden for myself" one of your cows bellowed out a MOOO it was like a trumpet! Powerful and totally made me smile big! xo
Love that are "inviting" them to the garden. Thank you for sharing!
Yes ma'am. I've been here from the beginning! And when I went to Scotland in 2017 to pastor a Church, you all provided me a regular visit home!!
I cant wait to see a garden of all your favorite things 💗
You've helped inspire my momma heart today.
My special needs son will need to be brought home in the fall to homeschool (he's in a wonderful private school now) and hearing your homeschool goals and process is helping encourage me to find my son's "heart garden" and meet him where he's at now.
I can do this. I will do this. It's absolutely possible and he will thrive in his special education. If you can do it, so can I. Thank you for encouraging my heart today. Everything will be okay!
I’ve been here from the beginning. I to am not in a rush this year. Not sure if I’ll be able to plant because of my health. I say that with a heavy heart. I do know I can garden vicariously through you & your channel. Thank you
Wonderful life lessons for any endeavor we desire to achieve, and in the mist of it you will be able to find joy and rest! Thank you❤
You are a great teacher and I can’t wait to learn more from you this garden season!!
I started watching you in 2020 when I decided I wanted to be able to grow food for food security. I lived in regular city house and I was so jealous of those who had the space to really grow! I listened to you and I used my waiting room as a classroom. This is my first year on my new homestead! There isn’t a garden to be seen so I have to build it all and I couldn’t be more excited! So thank you for all your teaching, it has been invaluable even though I live in the freezing north in Canada! So thank you!
I can completely relate to you these past few years. The garden has been the sacred space I needed.
This year will be my first year gardening in my new home. Building a garden felt too overwhelming so I bought a greenstalk (using your discount) and I can't wait to fill it with all kinds of things my kids and husband like! Strawberries, beans, spinach, peppers and herbs! Plus I plan on leaving a feelw spaces open to plant things throughout the season. I am trying not to be too hard on myself about not having a full fledged garden and focus on just growing things fresh, like you said! I LOVE harvesting things fresh for dinner!
Jess, I found your channel and a love for gardening in 2018- I still watch your older videos that inspired me to buy my first pack of seeds and to start growing my own food :) My how far we have all come. Thanks for taking us along on the journey.
Jess, this video really resonated with me. We are moving to our new homestead in late spring and I am most excited to have the space to garden. It’s so easy to want/plan for a ton of garden beds since we have the space but this really helped me sit back and focus on the why. The why isn’t a ton of food but to learn and enjoy our new space. Love the message. Thanks!
Been here since late 2017. Your content has been a haven in tough times. Thank you.
I've been here since the beginning
Thank you
Love your quote
Thank you for sharing... been there, done that 🙂 This year, no more... I want to enjoy the growing food and not feel overwelmed...so i will cover up a plot this year and minimize the space we really need... I wish you a wonderfull growing year! Enjoy it and do it for you! greetings from Belgium
You are awesome and give me SO much to think about!! We “hopefully” sign for our acre homestead this Friday and I want to be ready‼️
I love this Jess. I think things can become that way sometimes, especially when you’re so passionate about it you want to share & the sharing becomes almost demanding & overwhelming. I pray you have an abundantly blessed heart, garden & year. 🙏🏻💕
I found you in 2019 and I'm so happy I did bc you allowed me to find me again. You brought me peace and joy when going through hard things and allowed me to have a garden when I didn't think I could. You helped me to be unapologetically me. Thank you❤
I've watched you for so long and have learned so much from you. On my 4th year and this year my goal is production and focus on what we eat the most. However my daughter has asked me to help her start her first garden of her own which is a small space so will be container gardening. Also my daughter in law and son have asked me to help them start their very first family garden (4 grandbabies) so definitely gonna need lots of production for them. I'm so excited my love for gardening has rooted to my kids.
Hi Jess, my why is still learning to grow something new. For instance I have never ate a home grown Brussel sprout. I am planting what makes me happy. Also teaching my family how to grow their own food. I want to grow what makes me happy, like grown flowers.
Jess! I've been watching you for 6-ish years. I've learned so much from your videos, had some good gardens in the beginning, but in the last three years, I've started gardens, just to lose a loved one and let them become neglected grief gardens. My why this year is to reclaim the garden to nurture my Ag Sciences kid in turning it into the legacy garden. for food, fun, for flowers.
❤ I can't wait to see the boys working the garden with you. 😊
I resonate with this so much! This will be my 5th season growing a micro cut flower farm in my backyard. In the process of selling the flowers I have lost a lot of the joy. I am planning a similar standard to yours!
I love the plan for your boys. There’s a way that trying to making something easy and fun for them to the extreme takes away some of the joy of hard work, stick-with-it-ness, and service. If you have a good relationship and you tell them what to do with their best interest at heart, there will be literal and metaphorical fruit! Y’all are great
2019 ❤
I am so happy you’re doing this. I hope you receive everything you’re looking for with your garden this year.
I still watch your older videos from time to time. They do have that familiar feeling and remind me of my childhood in my grandmothers garden and have that secret garden feeling like my grandmothers garden. Spent so much time in her garden and your videos in your old garden bring back those lovely memories and feelings of gardening with her.
Jess, I have followed you a long time, perhaps from your 2nd year. I must tell you, you join my husband and I for breakfast with every new vlog you issue. It has become quite the ritual and we thoroughly enjoy your company, lol. My 'why' is because I like to grow things and my garden has always been a space of peace, beauty and wonder. This has proved to be the case whether I was living in an apartment with a balcony garden full of pots or now on our large property in the country. We also value the taste that comes with fresh produce from unusual varieties. Oh, and thank you for converting your temperatures to Celcius. It really helps with understanding the temperatures you are experiencing. We will enjoy this ride with you for as long as you let us.
Love the idea of succession sowing and learning how to do this in a a small garden.
I started watching you 7 years ago and found Greg Judy and Justin Rhodes. Thank you all for a great mentorship.
YOU GO GIRL!
Do it for yourself!
Make your heart & soul sing!
I found you while you were in Arkansas. It was a beautiful experience. Now I enjoy you as a sensible farmer/gardener.
Jess, This is the best thing I have heard in quite awhile. Your love for your garden before you moved to SC was such an uplifting experience everytime I went along for your journey. Your heart felt devotionals spoke loudly to my heart as well. I will be so happy to see that spark back. Im working on finding my spark back as well. The last few years the soil has been terrible and my vegetables failed 2 years in a row it was so depressing. This year I will be alot more careful and I will be moving my beds to make it more of an inspiration rather than just areas to have to cut grass around. Blessings to you for a fantastic year.
This year after expanding my garden last fall, I’m going to make a prettier more finessed garden. And I’m using the seeds I have to start seed starting. Then I’ll buy plants at a local nursery to supplement what I don’t have. I’m going to put flowers and herbs in it. I want to love looking at it as well as loving the veggies produced. This is my 5th year vegetable gardening.
Good video! I smiled at the cow almost responding to you..almost a ya! LOL. I garden because it brings me joy but also because it saves me money - I know this because I figured it out. I can't garden outdoors all year round so putting up food gives me comfort in knowing I have it. However, because of how much I put up the last years, I am drastically downsizing and being intentional about what and how much I plant - there will still be experiments (I have to) but it will be much smaller. The plan in downsizing is that I can solarize parts of the garden to deal with quack grass which will allow me to get some other non gardening projects done. The why is still the same, it just looks different.
This is my sixth year in my garden and your messages are always spot on. Your soul is so beautiful Jess ❤ you inspired me to start and now my whole yard is garden and I have chickens, I’m so happy for you to plant your soul garden again 🎉
Jess
I have watched u grow I love how relatable u have always been! You have inspired me to make my waiting room my classroom I am a gardener in a small town in Central Valley California. My brothers and thier families are from Arkansas. It is refreshing to hear you say that u are going back to the things that made you love gardening because I have had the same thoughts about gardening this year
Romance that garden! Fall in love with it again!
I joined during Covid. Been loving it since.
No matter how bad my day is, you always cheer me up, Jess. Thank you, my friend.
I love the new property and what you have done with it. I do think the same way...just want to eat season abundance. Gardening is just rooted in me too. It's a joy every year when I pick that first ripe tomato.
Last year was really hard for me. I got separated, moved out and I grew a total of 3 tomatoes and a handful of carrots. So this year I’m growing to find my joy again. I love the garden and all the delicious food it brings me. I can’t wait to start my seeds and see where the garden will take me this year!
I just love growing something, the process is so amazing to me, but getting food out of it is a bonus too.
Thanks Jess. I got so burned out trying to do too much and fighting critters that gave up. It wasn't joyful anymore, so I stopped last summer mid way. Starting again this spring and this message is right on time
My “why” is beauty. My heart wants all the flowers, just for the joy of it.💐 I’ll also plant plenty of food for fresh eating because that’s so tasty and delightful too, but it’s especially the flowers that make my heart sing. They always have, since I was a little girl.
What you were saying in this video really resonated with me, even got me a little choked up…planting all your favourites, making it the garden of your heart…yes! I needed that. Last year I felt like I didn’t have ownership of my garden, even though it was me doing all the work. What I had planted…the purpose was for others, not for me. It was fine, but I had lost the joy. I want that back. This season Imma plant all my faves right along with you and see if I can get that feeling of delight back, then I can share from the overflow of my heart and garden instead of it being like a duty, an obligation. (That sounds like a good experiment to me!)
Enriching my soil is my goal this year! Love everything you are saying!
Oh Jess!! This video was so positively inspiring! I’m so excited you’re getting back to the plants to know and love! I cannot wait to see your beautiful plants grow! I’ve been a viewer for 6 years! And I just got married last September in my garden (which is heavily inspired by your garden style) thank you for always inspiring me.
Ugh this made me cry. So happy that you are doing this!!!
I’ve been with you since 2018… can’t remember if you had 2,000 or 20,000 when I joined your crew. Jess, you have been my inspiration since my early days when my garden was still a dream in my head. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I bless you ❤❤❤
Been watching you for the past four years. Caught up on your older ones. ❤
I’m new here! This is my first year with you and surprise, surprise this spring I’ll be planting my first vegetable garden. I’ve been deep in my dreaming stage and have encountered a surprising amount of discouragement from my family. Everyone except my wonderful husband thinks I’m going to fail because I’m too excited and don’t know what I’m doing. But I have you!!! I’ve watched so many videos, taken notes and am starting with a small but eager garden. Two raised beds and a greenstalk. I know I’ll be learning through trial and error but I have faith that it won’t all be a failure thanks to all the wisdom you’ve shared! Here’s to my 2025 revenge garden 😂😂
I haven't been here from the very beginning but quite a few years. You have definitely been here since the beginning of me becoming a gardener as a guiding light to me and I thank you so much for that. I can't wait to see what this year brings in your garden. For me this year I plan to grow more staples, hone in on peppers which are harder in short seasons like ours but a fam fav and so expensive to buy, more perennial foods. I also love growing flowers. An unplanned gift from the garden has been being able to supply fresh flowers on our altar at church every Sunday during the growing season. I would love to expand that into using some to fund raise for our small church, as well. Bless you and happy planning!
Love love love what you have decided to do this year!!