How a 10x10 Garden Helped Me Heal

Root2Rise Creations began with a 10x10 garden in 2019. What started as a simple act of love from my family during a difficult season became the beginning of healing, reflection, and a deeper journey back to myself.

At the time, my adult daughter, McKenzie, was living with us, and together with my husband, Steve, they wanted to create something that would help feed both my soul and our family during a season when I was walking through depression. What started as a small garden became so much more than a place to grow food.

That first growing season changed me.

I discovered a deep love for planting a seed, nurturing its germination, watching its growth, and learning the intricate ways it interacts with the environment around it. I found myself returning to meditation while working the soil and tending the crops. In the quiet rhythm of planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting, I also began reflecting on the way we tend to the relationships closest to us.

The garden became a mirror.

It reminded me of the care required in my roles as a mother, grandma, wife, sister, and friend. It made me think about how we choose to show up for the people we love, how healing often takes time, and how growth is rarely rushed. Somewhere in that process, I began to heal too.

By the next year, the garden grew. Our skill sets grew. And little by little, I was returning to a healthier version of myself.

As our family’s knowledge and attention became more focused on intentional living, ingredients, growing food, and caring more deeply about what we put in and on our bodies, the passion to create, preserve, and share with intention grew right alongside our family’s healing. The garden became a place the family loved coming over to see. The grandbabies would ask what Grandma was growing, wanting to help plant, explore, and harvest. It became more than a garden space. It became part of our family story.

As I began learning preservation methods, my eyes were opened to the beauty of herbs and flowers in ways that extended beyond the kitchen. I became fascinated by skincare, botanical uses, and the holistic properties woven into creation. I saw more clearly the many ways God has provided for humanity through the earth, through plants, and through the integrated care of mind, body, and soul.

That awakening planted another seed.

Root2Rise Creations grew from that place of healing, curiosity, family, and intention. It was born from the garden, but also from the restoration that happened around it. It is rooted in a love for ingredients, handmade goods, and the quiet rituals that help us care for ourselves and those we love.

What began in a 10x10 garden became a deeper journey of healing, creating, preserving, and sharing. Root2Rise is a reflection of that journey—one that continues to grow with gratitude, purpose, and wonder.

Have you ever had a season, place, or practice that quietly helped bring you back to yourself?

Back Then

2025 Garden

Looking back, I can see that the garden was doing more than growing food. It was growing healing, perspective, and new life in places that had felt worn thin. What began there planted more than seeds in the soil—it planted the roots of what would later become Root2Rise Creations.