Why I Garden Despite Hating it
Project Ledger IV: A reflection on gardening, stewardship, and the responsibility of creating a place where life can flourish.
Gardening was never meant to be one of my passions. I don't romanticize hauling mulch, trimming overgrowth, dragging hoses, or spending entire Saturdays battling weeds that appear to have unlocked the immortality cheat code. There's nothing particularly interesting about digging holes, being covered in dirt and being pricked by rose thorns and thistle. If I am being honest, I hate most of it, and yet I continue to do it.
I don't keep gardening because I love it as a craft, but because I refuse to live in an environment shaped by neglect. I value walking up to a house that feels alive, and I appreciate the quiet arrogance of a well kept yard. I like that my wife can step outside, water flowers, and find a small pocket of calm in the middle of a busy week. I like that my dad has the space to work on the extended family vegetable garden, turning the yard into something useful rather than purely decorative. I care about what the garden contributes to the house, to the family, and to the atmosphere it creates without ever needing to explain itself. The garden itself is the isn't the point, the standard is.
This is where people often misunderstand the difference. There are projects driven by genuine enjoyment of the process, such as baking bread, making tea, playing music, writing, drawing alongside my daughters on a quiet Saturday morning, or building spaces in the basement that reflect the life I actually want to live. These are things that draw me toward them naturally. Gardening isn't like that. Gardening is closer to stewardship, marked by effort, repetition, and obligation. It's the act of caring for something because the result matters more than how you feel while doing it.
This principle extends well beyond landscaping. It applies to marriage, fatherhood, health, the home, and even to the idea of presence itself. Many people are drawn to the appearance of a well-lived life, including the calm kitchen, the warm lighting, the tidy yard, the strong relationship, the disciplined body, and the home that feels intentionally lived in. What they often resist is the ongoing work required to sustain those outcomes. Everyone wants the garden, but few are willing to continue the gardening.
This is where most people fall short, because beauty isn't something that simply appears. It's something that must be protected and maintained over time. Peace isn't discovered once and kept automatically; it requires consistent effort. The most meaningful aspects of life are supported by small, unremarkable decisions repeated long after any initial excitement fades. Someone has to mow the lawn, pull the weeds, fix the loose board, power wash the deck, blow the patio, trim the edges, prune the bushes and deal with problems while they are still small. Someone has to keep things functioning.
This work doesn't translate well to social media, and it rarely looks impressive. It doesn't feel glamorous or particularly freeing, but in a deeper sense, it is. There's something quietly defiant about refusing to let your environment decay and something almost rebellious about choosing to cultivate beauty in ordinary spaces.
This is not about performance or aesthetics alone; it's about recognizing that your life unfolds in these places. It matters because your children will remember that yard, because your wife deserves peace there, because your pops continues to grow something meaningful there, and because your home should feel worth returning to.
At the same time, not every part of my yard reflects that philosophy equally. Some areas are neglected, incomplete, or simply unattractive. There are corners I pass by and mentally apologize to, spaces under the deck that feel less like intentional design and more like problems I have postponed. These are places defined by half-finished ideas, temporary fixes that have lingered too long, and plans that require more time, effort, and money than I have yet committed.
This is where honesty becomes important, because stewardship doesn't mean perfection. Sometimes the vision comes before the budget, and sometimes the budget never arrives because I choose to spend my money on something else, like the next vacation, a late-90's Harley Davidson Sportster I have my eye on, or pursuing a different kind of dream altogether. There are times when I know exactly what I want a space to become, but I am unwilling to spend money on it until the idea feels right. I don't believe in creating expensive temporary solutions, and I'd rather wait and build something properly than rush into a polished version of something I don't truly want.
Living this way means accepting unfinished spaces for a period of time. It means holding the tension between standards and current reality. It's important to recognize that something can be both cared for and still in progress. This is true of most worthwhile pursuits. The idea of having everything together is often an illusion shaped by curated visibility often living on social media. In reality, some areas thrive while others are barely held together by effort and intention. This goes for most things, not just gardening.
The goal isn't perfection, but direction. Kaizoku Path, in this sense, was never about escaping life or chasing an unrealistic version of freedom. It's about creating freedom within the life that already exists. Sometimes that expression takes the form of ideas or philosophy, and sometimes it looks like a fun build or creative work. At other times, it looks like standing in the driveway with a shovel, frustrated and exhausted, and choosing to care anyway. It can also look like confronting the most neglected part of your yard and deciding not to create the illusion of progress just for comfort.
I may never come to love gardening itself. I'll likely complain about it every spring, continue to treat weeds as my arch enemy, and convince myself each year that I will somehow outmaneuver maintenance. I won't, and that's fine, because the goal was never to love the work. The goal was to build a life that feels intentional.
And if I am being honest, I don't even carry that responsibility alone. My wife helps and enjoys the part of it that I never will; the watering, the tending, the quieter rituals that slow things down for her. My father, who somehow genuinely loves gardening as a craft, is always happy to jump in. Given the opportunity, he can disappear into the vegetable garden for hours without complaint. Even if I do not fully understand people like this, I am grateful for them.
Maybe stewardship is not just maintaining things yourself, but creating a place others want to care for too.
A good garden, like a good life, isn't created through admiration alone but through consistent stewardship and a collection of hands, preferences, strength, and people leaving pieces of themselves in a place.
Not every meaningful endeavor begins with passion. Some begin with responsibility, with the understanding that if you don't take ownership, the standard will decline. Once you begin to notice standards, it becomes difficult to ignore them. You start to see which environments feel abandoned, which relationships are running on empty, and which spaces feel unintentional. Neglect has a distinct presence, but so does care.
Sometimes stewardship looks like rebellion. Other times it looks like asking for help.
