Millennials are discovering the soothing powers of gardening

Gardening blossomed during the pandemic—what else was one supposed to do while sheltering in place? As supply chain issues left many store shelves bereft of essentials, self-sufficiency became top of mind: People began making their own sourdough, sewing their own clothes. This was one of the many reasons more people began honing their green thumbs, said Toronto-based urban gardener Luay Ghafari, founder of Urban Farm and Kitchen and author of “Seed to Table.” Subscribing to community supported agriculture (CSA) boxes loaded with produce from local farmers had opened his eyes to the possibilities of urban gardening over a decade ago.

The concept of homesteading is particularly resonating with millennials, Ghafari added. “[They’re] really drawn to some of these ways of living, not necessarily ‘move-to-the-country-and-start-a-farm,’ but to be able to experience some of the activities our grandparents did. It sort of brings us closer to our families, our heritage and our culture.”

As a kid, Melissa Cameron would watch her father get the tomatoes planted. Each summer while she was at camp, he would harvest the first cherry tomato and mail it to her in a Ziploc bag.

These days, Cameron is an organic master gardener who splits her time between Toronto and Prince Edward Island, and she tends to her own fields alongside her own little ones. “My dad is no longer with us and so it’s like I feel him with me in the garden and my children when I’m present with them,” she said.

Many clients of Cameron’s garden design firm The Good Seed are well-known chefs who want to understand what goes into producing quality ingredients, and what they taste like when harvested and served right away. She says lots of people want to know more about their food now, and are curious about varieties available beyond the grocery store. “You know how people were considered foodies like 15 years ago? That’s where the gardening movement is right now,” said Cameron.

This boom has taken seed on social media, a natural extension of the cottagecore aesthetic. Cut flowers have bloomed across aspirational Pinterest boards, thanks to influencers like farmer-florist Erin Benzakein of Floret. “It’s that armful-of-flowers picture everyone wants,” Cameron said with a laugh. Picture those serotonin-boosting snaps of Jeremy Allen White laden with enormous bunches of tulips, protea pincushions and statice from the farmers market.

We’ve seen Oprah and Martha harvesting glorious baskets of produce for years but a slew of new players have recently set foot in the raised bed, like Pamela Anderson, who often shares snaps of herself tending to her Vancouver Island property in wellies and a sunhat.

It’s relaxing just to look at, but actually driving stakes into the ground or weaving tomatoes provides a welcome getaway and a mindfulness practice for those, like me, on a mission to unplug from the rat race and its noise for an afternoon.

“I can usually reach a nice flow state where I float from one task to another, completely absorbed in what I’m doing,” said Ashley Barron, an illustrator and avid gardener. Time escapes her when she’s pruning her raspberry bush, weeding her salad bed or harvesting bunches of kale at the Leslie Street Allotment Gardens in Toronto. The sun may begin to set but it takes a couple mosquito bites to jolt her out of her blissful zone.

This opportunity to connect with nature and nurture the land around us is especially soothing in the face of climate change anxiety. “I think that when we get caught up in the very real and overwhelming news around the state of the planet, we look for individual actions that we can take,” said Cameron. For one thing, growing your own food eliminates the need for shipment and plastic packaging. “It’s a way to feel empowered and a way to feel less despair.”

It also encourages us to observe our environment from outside a human lens. While growing a garden, you begin to notice all the different layers of its ecosystem: the soil and the organisms benefiting from it, the plants that photosynthesize and provide food for wildlife, the insects that attract bird populations. “Sometimes we look at these animals and think of them as pests, but we’re living in their homes and they have a right to access food just like we do,” said Ghafari.

In fact, this is one of Barron’s favourite aspects of gardening. Being so close to the natural parkland of the Leslie Street Spit, she always packs her binoculars to catch sight of the songbirds, swallows, hawks, butterflies, bees, rabbits, voles, groundhogs, frogs and snakes that call her city garden home.

Gardening also affords us the permission to play, said Cameron, to get our hands dirty and experiment. Last year, I attempted growing beets, and failed. But the trial and error aspect of gardening is one of its most rewarding. “If something doesn’t go as planned this summer, I can always try again the next,” Barron said. “It gives you a sense of hope and anticipation for the future.”