Some kids count sheep before sleeping. Ours counts worms. Until she was two, we lived as caretakers on one-hundred wooded acres. Before she could walk, she was plucking green cherry tomatoes and, more helpfully, pole beans from vines. But her favorite activity was “worming.”

While crawling in dirt, Violet learned to distinguish red wigglers – excellent vermicomposters –  from invasive hammerheads. She’d squish grass-destroying white grubs that had attracted so many armadillos, the yard resembled a miniature-golf course.

Her first word was Daddy. Among her next, Worm. Twilight was “Worming-Time.” Some nights my husband and I – older parents and exhausted – hoped she’d forget.

“You do it,” we'd beg the other. 

But standing under the stars while she dug through soil, shouting with delight whenever she found one, always made us smile.

Good soil begins underground. Earthworms aerate it, helping nutrients reach roots. But not all worms are equal. Nor is all soil.

We moved to our first home in a Tennessee town of under 4,000, onto five mostly wooded acres.

But the rocky “chert” soil’s notoriously poor for growing. Sadly sifting through it, Violet sighed, “No worms.” She wasn’t impressed by our steep narrow paths either: every kicked ball rolled downhill. Massive tree-covers blocked sunlight from any cleared ground. She wanted T.V. instead of the outdoors.

A month before Violet was born, my mother unexpectedly died. A void of grief hovered over me. Who would I ask for advice? How would I learn to be a mom? I wrote a list of what mattered most to pass onto my daughter. Love. Resilience. Curiosity. And a relationship with the earth. 

But now, of course, no garden.

It seemed petty to complain. Already we were making friends with neighbors and other families. They didn’t seem concerned about gardens. I couldn’t explain how deeply I felt that home wasn’t home unless it had a garden or how firmly I believed in growing our own food and flowers for the pollinators. Or how badly I wanted worms for our daughter. 

One afternoon while we built a gazebo, she shouted, “I made it to the top of my mountain!” Eye-level and mud-covered, she’d clambered the enormous root-ball of one of the many fallen trees covering our ground. Soon she begged daily for her “mountain” climbs. 

“Root balls are full of nitrogen,” my husband noted. “Nitrogen’s fertilizer. If we broke all these apart, we’d actually have soil.”      

“No!” Violet howled. 

“She’ll find something else,” my husband assured me.

And he was right. We grabbed the mattock and shovels. Soon Violet was “treasure-hunting” through the rich dirt. Presently we had wagonloads. But where to put them?

One dawn, I bushwacked through the woods determined to learn the land so well I’d never lose my way. Instead, I got lost, and it started raining. 

Not water. 

Grapes, tumbling down around me.

I’d stumbled into an arbor of wild muscadines, their thick sweet flesh instantly familiar from childhood summers. Between them and Violet’s final “mountain” lay twenty feet of thorns and scrub-trees. Could this be our garden? 

“So clear it.” My husband handed me the weed-eater with a grin.

Breaking ground is blistering work. But it had to be done. The mattock’s steady swing became meditative. Battling brambles was a daily pursuit. 

Returning home from story time with Violet one afternoon, I found my husband chain-sawing stumps, clearing saplings, and spreading soil across my new plot.

“You wanted a garden,” he shrugged. “I promised your mom I’d always try to make you happy.”

Soon the soil, three feet deep, was soft enough to dig. Violet jumped in. We planted blueberry bushes, then daffodil bulbs that we’d optimistically purchased seven months ago on moving day. Poking two-inch holes into the ground and dropping their tiny onions in made me remember my mother’s wake, filled with the bright yellow flowers symbolizing hope and rebirth. 

My daughter may miss her mountains, but there’s so much that’s new for her to discover now. And for me, too.

I try to remember lessons I’m learning from the earth: I can plant the seeds, plan the arrangement of the garden, and protect it from aphids, mice, and more. I shouldn’t over-water or smother it with mulch. But the most important thing is creating the right soil. Then let things grow. And be open to surprises.

Sometimes rain is grapes. And sometimes it’s just rain. 

As we finished pine mulching, the rain began. And those drops drew earthworms to the surface. 

“Mama!” My daughter called, dangling a squirming red-wiggler, “Look! Worms!”