If you aren't a gardener, you can ask why this pastime is becoming so preferred even with town folks who have the resources to go to the grocery and get food with far less effort. Maybe lots of the joy that comes from gardening came from our baby boomer values that came from those golden "hippie" days of the 1960s. Part of the moral and ethical system of that time in our cultural history was the "back to the land" movement to get back to our roots and away from the purported sins of modern society.

From this same movement we got the increased interest in vegetarianism, yoga, natural eating and the environmental movement.

So, while we look back with a little bit of chagrin on the idealism and infrequently radical values this time of baby boomer history represents, there are some wonderful lifestyle decisions that came from that age of our shared lives. And the love of gardening is an example of the good things we kept from that time. Gardening is a past-time that is unique among hobbies because virtually nothing bad can come of it. Even if you're a total failure at gardening and do not produce a single morsel of food from your garden, just the act of working with the earth and making something grow is so therapeutic that it's worth the effort even if you only grow weeds. One reason gardening is a superb pastime is that it's easy. But you can get as complex and scientific at it as you please. Gardening is like fishing in the way that even if you are awful at it, it's completely worth doing just for the excitement of the time you are out there. There actually is nothing equivalent in therapy for going out in the garden in the evening after a disturbing time at your job. Working with the soil and spending sometime nurturing and pouring your tender loving care into the garden can make those worries and stresses of the office melt away. Then when you come in after an hour of gardening, those cares take on their correct perspective so you can deal with them. Gardening in creativity for the uncreative.

When you until your garden and prepare your soil, that is a master painter preparing his paints to provide that masterwork. Even the easy act of watering the soil has nearly a paranormal regenerative power for you which is so refreshing that you're going to expect your time with your garden as much as any other part of your day. But when that day comes that you dash out to your garden after work and see those young sprouts come up that you so fastidiously planted and cared for, it's a bit moment of parenting that may bring real joy to your heart. We think we know that we didn't create the seed and we are only carers in helping that plant sprout and then grow into a healthy fruit, herb or plant plant. By becoming part of the cycle of nature when you care for the plants in your garden, it gives you a sense of completion and connection to God and his creation that might not even be copied in the best of church services.

Even the most toughened non-believer will feel that connection to the eternal by simply hanging out with the easy plants of the earth and letting them become part of the life he lives. So don't be scared to put together a tiny plot of land and begin planning your small garden.

Even if you are a residence dweller, you can organize a garden with planter boxes and grow lights and get lots of the same joys from your tiny garden the master garden with acres of crops can get.