Stop. Look. Listen.

Finding sanctuary in a garden starts with a well-placed bench.

(Note: If this letter lands in your Junk files, move to your inbox for photos to appear.)

I'm jumping ahead of myself to even mention the word dirt, or soil as we gardeners prefer because, in Vermont, we are still navigating through the mud. Yet birds are returning and beginning to display courtship rituals, while snowdrops are pushing out to greet the sun.

“ It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” - Rainer Maria Rilke

During this in-between seed starting, planting, and weeding time, I am mostly inside finishing the pile of books on my winter reading list. Reading and gardening go hand in hand, and I know that once the garden season starts, there will be less time for sitting. When I do, it will feel like pure laziness. The exception is when I am sitting on a garden bench. Finding that sweet spot in the landscape on a bench becomes not just a source of comfort, but also inspiration.

A year ago this spring, my book The New Heirloom Garden was published. It is a daunting experience to write a book, yet thrilling to hold the finished print copy in my arms. It took four years of writing, editing, photography, layout, and design, and once the whole team approved, another year until UPS delivered the first case to my front porch.

I clearly remember when the inspiration for writing the book struck: sitting on my garden bench. It might have looked to an outsider that I was taking a nap with my eyes closed, but I was actually plotting the outline. I was listening, observing, inhaling the smell of the soil while sketching the narrative in my mind’s eye.

The New Heirloom Garden book was inspired after ripping open a seed packet to sow spinach when I stopped for a moment to think about where the seeds were grown. Surely not the address on the back of the seed packet, but from an unknown field far away, perhaps in another country. I moved to the bench to think deeply, look more closely at the seeds and then act. The result is a book about the origins of seeds, specifically heirloom seeds, and why they truly matter. Without the bench nearby, I might have continued to rip open seed packets, without a care except to get them into the ground to start growing.

This winter, I read two books by the Irish author, Niall Williams, both revolved around stories of modern changes within a small Irish community. One was fiction, This is Happiness, while the other In Kiltumper, is a true story. Co-written with his wife Christine Williams, they take the reader through a year in their garden, the changing seasons, and the altering of the landscape beyond their garden with a dreaded installation of wind turbines in the bucolic field next door. It's a reminder that when faced with change, destruction, and loss of habitat beyond our borders, we can create a sanctuary within our gardens.

In this early spring before the soil is warm enough to plant, find that sweet spot in your garden for a bench. Make it a place you can sit and ponder in your my mind’s eye: a hedge of sunflowers, an arbor of sweet peas, a circle of frilly kale surrounding a ring of lettuce and herbs. 

 As Thomas Merton wrote, “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” Gardens and a well-placed garden bench facilitates this process.

The most engaging landscapes have an aura about them, a steady reminder that our love of the natural world is deeply ingrained in our own survival and enrichment. One way to work through the changes in the world, within and beyond, is to feel deeply the end of winter as we move towards hope, and sitting on a bench in the garden makes it real.

From my garden to yours,

Ellen O.

Ellen Ecker Ogden is the author of The Complete Kitchen Garden and The New Heirloom Garden. Designs and Recipes Cooks Who Love to Cook.

www.ellenogden.com or Instagram.

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Thank You Notes

A few years back, The New York Times ran a short article on the power of thank you notes. While the polite words of appreciation for the lovely weekend or dinner party are appropriate, the type of thank you notes that are most important are to those who have provided inspiration, mentored, or pushed you to a new level. On that note, I wish to thank everyone who has subscribed to my newsletter.

You have allowed me to share what I know, and I have learned from you as well. When gardeners get together and talk gardens, magic happens, and we all leave a little bit more enlightened. Share your thoughts on a well-placed garden bench. Become a subscriber during the month of March and I’ll send you seeds from my garden.