The Garden That Changed My Life

G'day folks. I'd like to tell a story that I hope will get you back into the garden again. Not because you feel like you need to, but because it makes you feel like you want to. Like it's too good just to ignore any longer. My name is Weedy and this is the Weedy Garden. A little garden on a hill in Australia far away from any town and even further from a city where I grow wonderful, colourful, clean and natural, real food. When I think of paradise I think of a garden. It's like a home inside a home. Gardens are a place of richness, of plenty. I love the smell of rain, the feel of my bare feet on the ground and the sun on my skin. Being connected to your food means more than just physical health. It's a spiritual health that enriches your soul. By eating the food that you grow yourself in the soil that you walk upon you truly enter another state of well-being that you probably didn't even know existed. It's called being human and reaching your full potential and it all comes from the food we eat. Do you know the closest connection that we have to the natural world is the food that we put in our mouth and that's how we find out who we really are. Every time I see someone walking up that driveway I can't help but smile because I remember what this place used to be like. It wasn't always a garden it was just a grassy hill, no fruit trees, no berries, no beans, climbing fences, just grass and a bloke who didn't know much about gardening at all. All I really knew was that the sun was important and that was about it. When I first stood here years ago I remember thinking how hard can it be? You dig a hole, you put something in it, you water it, that's gardening right? Well not quite. I planted things that died and I over-watered and I under-watered. Planted the wrong thing at the wrong time and I listened to too many opinions but I kept noticing something. Whenever I paid attention, whenever I slowed down and really watched, the garden responded. First time I grew a beetroot properly felt like I'd cracked some ancient code. Not because I'd become clever but because I'd finally started listening. Listening to the soil, listening to the seasons and listening to the sun. That grassy hill slowly stopped being a hill and started becoming a conversation and somewhere along the way something shifted. I stopped trying to grow food and started trying to grow soil. To grow life underneath the surface, the worms, the fungi, the microbes. I realised the garden wasn't something I controlled, it was something I cared for and when you care for something long enough it gives back. Not immediately, not dramatically but steadily, faithfully. Birds arrived and the bees moved in and one day I stood here and I realised that there was more than enough. More mangoes that I could eat, more beans that I could cook and more berries that I could fit in my hands. That's when the real joy began because abundance is wonderful but sharing it is something else entirely. This box isn't just food, it's years of trial and error, it's mornings watering in bare feet, it's learning from failure instead of giving up. It's the sun that rises over that hill every single day whether I'm ready or not. It's patience, persistence and it's care. When I hand this to someone I'm not just giving them fruit and vegetables, I'm giving them a piece of the journey from grass to soil to life to abundance and maybe that's what a garden really teaches you. You start knowing almost nothing and you show up, you make mistakes and you try again and if you keep going long enough one day you'll be walking someone back to the gate and they're holding a box that once used to be a patch of grass. That's the magic of it. The garden grows food yes but it also grows you and when it grows enough you pass it on. So I just want to ask you something, are you enjoying the content so far? If you're thinking to yourself yes I am, I get so much joy out of my garden, so much joy I love to share it on YouTube but I also want to give someone, someone that's watching, someone that's subscribed, someone that likes my videos and comments on my videos and engages with me to help this creative process grow. One of you out there I will find and I'll come and give you a garden makeover as well. I'll come and do my best together with the Weeder Garden community which is a bunch of volunteers that also watch the channel and love sharing this idea that I have of changing people's lives one garden at a time. You might be a lucky person that I select to give a garden makeover to. If you don't know about all that then have a look at that video up here and that explains all about it, the new Weeder Garden concept. Every now and again I'm going to select somebody that comments on the videos and I'm going to get in touch with them. I'm going to say hey it's Weeder here, would you like a garden makeover? Would you like us to come out and turn your space into an edible paradise? That's what we're going to do if you're in Australia. I promise when I get a million subscribers we'll go international. So we need subscribers, we need interaction, we want to grow the channel. Watch, subscribe, share your feelings, share your heart and enjoy my videos okay. See you next time folks. Hope you enjoyed this simple video. Hope you enjoy your gardens and your lives. Have a nice day and I'll catch on the next video.