Finding Embodiment in the Garden – A WildRoots Summer Worker Reflection

By Seika Dyck, WildRoots Summer Worker

Sept 1, 2026

This past summer while working for A Rocha in Manitoba I learned how to properly tend to a garden, and quickly fell in love with the act of gardening and all the beauty it reveals. I grew up with parents who did lots of  gardening and encouraged me to as well, but I never felt interested to engage with the plants. However, since working for A Rocha I’ve come to see the value and joy gardening brings and have found myself completely entranced with all the tiny moments of growth or change in the plants.

I noticed that after learning so much about gardening, I have started to pay more attention to all the other gardens around me in my daily life. I have gained a literacy of knowing and understanding gardens. Before when I would walk around my neighbourhood all the plants would blur together in a mixture of colours and textures. Now when I walk around I can appreciate the differences between gardens and see the creative ways people have chosen to arrange their plants. One of my favourite front yard gardens this summer had two small beds with just kale and marigolds alternating back and forth. Not only do these two plants suit each other aesthetically, they also are biologically compatible to be paired together as the scent from marigolds help deter predators of the brassica plant family. 

Every day we’d spend in the garden, I discovered more and more affection towards the plants we were tending and all the bodily senses involved in gardening. I loved the smell of mint on my fingertips, the lush colours of the marigolds, and of course the sweet taste of the berries when ripe. However, I also appreciated the feeling of tension when pulling out weeds, the pain of  bending over, or even the dirt in your nails after the day. The physical toll of gardening shows me how much care I put into the plants. After working in the garden all day there is a sense of intimacy with the plants. Both the body of the plants and the gardeners are working and growing toward a common goal of fruition. The gardener’s physical strain at the end of the day demonstrates the labor required to care for plants, and how that labor connects people to the plants.

During the summer we read a quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass, in which she states,  “People often ask me, what one thing I would recommend to restore our relationship to the land? My answer is almost always, ‘Plant a garden.’… And the land will reciprocate, in beans.” I love how this quote names gardening’s embodiment of the human need for a relationship with the earth and nature. Gardening’s physicality allows for people to tangibly feel the responsibility they have to the earth and thus appreciate the gifts the earth brings. When eating produce that we have not gardened we miss out on the relationship of fully seeing and knowing the gift that the plant has given to us. We feel no sense of connection nor have we put any work put into receiving that gift.

Overall, it’s been wonderful to experience the gift of gardening and to intimately know all the different stages the produce has gone through: from the early signs of budding beets in May to the armfuls of zucchini harvested in August.