We decided to plant a vegetable garden this year at our house. We’ve attempted this task many times before without much success. Great enthusiasm goes into starting the seeds in windowsill planters while snow is still melting outside. The enthusiasm remains strong as the plants emerge from their slumber and poke through the surface of their dirt blankets.

The sun warms the Earth and I enthusiastically plant the seed starts outside. Mid-summer rolls around and my attempts to remember to water the little guys on the hottest days gets hijacked by a busy work schedule. Last year, my enthusiasm was rewarded with one success. That is — one pea pod with one pea in it. Just one. I took it in the house and set it on the countertop. I didn’t know if I should eat it, share it, or laugh about it. I took a picture and ate it.

Growing up on a farm has left me with many lessons that are sometimes taken for granted. My family has been growing and producing their own food for as long as I’ve been alive. It is a great lesson for children to learn what it takes to produce that carrot they are snacking on or that tomato on their plate. Or, how much time and effort are put forth to humanely raise chickens or cattle. Making sure the barn was filled with enough hay to feed the horses all winter meant spending hot summer days in the field cutting and baling alfalfa when you’d rather be at the lake. How much rain was forecast for the season was always a concern.

So with all this experience, one would think I would be able to produce more than one pea. I realize it takes more than enthusiasm to grow a garden. This year, with the kids being a little older and curious about where their food comes from, I have committed to making it a great year for a garden.

Aside from water management support, the other problem with our property is poor soil quality. Our home sits on a sand dune covered with topsoil. The only thing it seems to be good for is ants. Short of trucking in yards of fresh top soil to spread all over the yard, which would end up making a mess of neighboring homes if caught with a heavy rain, I’ve been seeking a solution.

While driving around town earlier this year I noticed that many people use raised garden beds or containers to grow their herbs or vegetables in. There was the answer to the soil problem! Container gardens also make pest prevention much easier. It was a win-win-win solution.

When it came time to prepare the containers for planting, I remembered a method of European gardening that a friend had told me about. It is called hugelkultur, and it involves placing logs, sticks, leaves and other natural material in the bottom layers of the bed and covering it with soil. As the lower layers slowly decompose (as they would anyway if left on the forest floor), it holds moisture better and slowly creates nutrient rich soils. With the containers placed in the part of the yard that gets the most sunlight, the prognosis for producing more than one pea is looking good.

With our garden beds prepped and the kids more curious than ever to see how to make our own food, we headed into the house to get the seedlings that were quickly outgrowing their starter home dirt pods. While my husband was bringing the flats of seedlings outside my son asked why they were all leaning. Taking a look, it was clear that the plants had been moving themselves toward the direction of the sunlight coming in through the window. Seeing a plant grow toward the sun is such a common occurrence that I hadn’t really thought about the why or how of it in ages. But it actually has a name (I’m no genius, I Googled it).

“Tropism” is the term used to describe growth toward a positive stimulus. Plants naturally grow toward water and light sources. Even shade-loving plants will do better in areas where there is a bit more sunlight filtering through. While talking to the kids about this concept, our daughter said, “just like people are happier when they choose a good attitude, right?”

Right.

What started out as a life lesson about where food comes from, ended with a reminder from my 8-year-old that we too develop better when we grow toward the light. Seeking out the positive, brings more positive results. What sunlight and water is for plants, enthusiasm and positivity is for people. Not every life situation is sunshine and rainbows, but even in darkness, a choice can be made to grow toward the light.

Mary Beth Stutzman’s Inspiring A-Town runs bi-weekly on Tuesdays. Follow Mary Beth on Twitter @mbstutz.