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Growing More Than Just Vegetables
Farming might be the most meaningful thing you do after retirement
In the garden of retirement, the most important thing we harvest is ourselves — N.N
We talk a lot about retirement — saving for it, planning it, dreaming about it.
My grandmother never did.
She didn’t separate living from working; to her, they were the same breath. She tended her soil into her 80s, steady and uncomplaining. And when her body finally said, enough, she rested.
She passed away peacefully just one week later. She didn’t fade away; she simply finished her shift.
When I decided to retire, I — like many of us — often felt that retirement was a kind of “shrinking.” The walls of the house that once felt warm slowly began to feel cramped. The once-busy routine loosened, leaving a space often filled by loneliness and a body sending signals of fatigue.
Of course, there are many activities you can choose to fill your retirement. I was lucky to remember my grandmother’s example: to stay connected to the earth.
This led me to an activity that can be sustained well into old age — gardening. Every spring and summer, I return to a small patch in the corner of my yard.
