I’ve spent less time in the food forest than usual this summer. I’ve been learning new skills, absorbed in different work, and paying less attention than ever to what was happening in my own backyard. But a few evenings ago, after a 106-degree day, I stepped outside at dusk to see how the garden had weathered the latest heat wave.

Grapes I hadn’t picked had shriveled into raisins on the vine. The ground beneath the nectarine tree was littered with fruit already beginning to rot, slowly being carried away by ants. Dry leaves crunched beneath my feet.

And yet, even in this parched, inland-California-at-the-end-of-summer garden, I was surrounded by abundance. For the first time, I was beginning to understand what that really meant. The irony is that I’ve spent the last six years talking about creating abundance, only to realize that we don’t create abundance at all.

Abundance just is.

The sun pours more energy onto this little piece of land than I could ever capture. Trees turn that energy into fruit. The fruits and vegetables I don’t eat become food for ants, fungi and microorganisms, and eventually, soil. That soil holds the water that falls from the sky, which gives life to the whole system.

Of course, that isn’t to say I didn’t have a role. There was clearly an intervention here. Plants were brought in. Soil was moved. Wood chips were added.

But I didn’t create the force that made any of it grow. I simply helped shape the conditions through which that abundance could express itself.

That doesn’t mean surrendering and simply waiting for nature to provide. Abundance may be inherent, but our choices still shape the conditions through which it can express itself.

And as I begin imagining my next garden, that distinction is changing the way I understand my role.

Perhaps my work is not to decide what abundance should look like and impose it upon the land. Perhaps it is to notice what the land is already doing, imagine what else it may be capable of, and understand what's standing in the way.

Sometimes that means taking something away: compaction, pavement, poisoned soil, a practice that interrupts the living system. But sometimes removing a limitation means adding what is missing: a tree to cast shade, roots to open the soil, mulch to protect it, or water given enough time to sink into the earth.

That feels different from creating. It feels like relationship: listening, responding and participating.

I suspect this may be true beyond the garden, too, but I’m not ready to turn it into a tidy lesson. For now, it’s enough to let the garden change the question.

As I imagine what I’ll cultivate next, I no longer want to begin by asking: What can I create here?

I want to begin with: What is already trying to grow...and what would allow it to thrive?

I’d love to know what this brings up for you.

Hit reply and tell me. I read every response, and I’d love for these letters to become a conversation, not simply something I send into your inbox. Anyways, here's to another beautiful week with Nature.

🧡 Erin

P.S. If this letter has you looking differently at your own patch of earth, the Food Forest Design Workbook is a practical place to begin. You can get it here.​