I’m often asked how I manage to tend the garden, create our small-batch products, prepare seasonal recipes, write for the Le Petit Jardin journal, and care for Seeds of Hope. It is a lot to hold, and the honest answer is that I don’t do it all alone. I’m grateful for the helping hands of our garden workers, and for Kris, my husband, who is always there beside me.
Still, so much of Le Petit Jardin begins with me: a seed, an idea, a basket of something freshly gathered, or a recipe I’m eager to try. The days can be full, and the work is real. Gardens need tending. Ingredients need preparing. Ideas need time to find their way onto the page. There is always something more that could be done.
But when I step back and look at it all, I find that one feeling runs through every part of it: joy.
Joy in watching the garden change with the seasons. Joy in the quiet rhythm of planting, gathering, and caring for what grows. Joy in turning those gifts into something fragrant, nourishing, or lovely to share. Joy in writing about the little moments that might otherwise pass unnoticed ~ and in knowing that something grown or made here may bring happiness to someone else.
Seeds of Hope carries that same feeling beyond the garden. It is a reminder that what we nurture can reach farther than we imagine, and that small acts of care can take root in another place and grow.
There are certainly busy days, and moments when the list feels longer than the hours. But I don’t think of Le Petit Jardin as a collection of tasks to keep up with. I think of it as a life I feel fortunate to tend: one shaped by beauty, creativity, generosity, and the people who share in it.
So when someone asks how I manage it all, perhaps the truest answer is that joy keeps me returning to it. Not because every part is effortless, but because I love the process ~ and I love what it makes possible.
And that, for me, is the heart of Le Petit Jardin: finding joy in the tending, the making, the sharing, and all the little things that grow along the way.
