{"id":856,"date":"2026-07-15T17:28:54","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T00:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/?p=856"},"modified":"2026-07-15T17:28:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T00:28:54","slug":"watch-our-garden-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/2026\/07\/15\/watch-our-garden-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch our garden grow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watch our garden grow\u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n

How one semester in the garden changed the way I think about farming, food, and the people who grow it<\/h3>\n

Growing up I knew farming was part of my families life in India. I always heard stories about working in the field, growing crops and how much time and effort it took to grow the food. Even though I heard those stories I never paid much attention or cared enough because I never experienced it first hand. It was until I started this project and I now understand what they meant. Now that we are half way through the semester, it\u2019s exciting to see how much our garden has grown. Looking back at it now I never expected to have such an experience. While growing our garden one thing I learned is that a garden cannot grow without consistent care. Everyone in our group takes turns watering the garden throughout the week. We care for our garden on a daily basis and I learned that even missing small tasks can affect how plants grow. Seeing vegetables develop over the past few weeks made me realize that growing food takes patience, consistency, and teamwork.<\/p>\n

Our garden also reminded me of Burrell and Pedersen’s (2024) idea of \u201cethic of care\u201d. They explain how people should build caring relationships with nature instead of seeing it as something to control or simply use for their own benefit. I experienced this with our own garden throughout the semester. The vegetables only continued to grow because we consistently cared for them by watering them, checking on them, and making sure we were consistent in our care. This showed me that nature responds to the care we give it.Working in the garden opened my eyes towards the unfair treatment people who grow our food face. Before, I did not know much about “ultra-exploited migrant workers” (Allahdua, 2023) who harvest our local produce, but after reading Gabriel Allahdua\u2019s <\/span>Harvesting Freedom has exposed the <\/span>“eighteenth-century working conditions” hidden within Canada\u2019s agricultural sector<\/span> (Allahdua, 2023). Gabriel Allahdua explains that many workers are often trapped by tied work permits, are forced into substandard housing with dangerous environments and constant threats of deportation to keep them silent (Allahdua, 2023). Spending time in our own garden I have great appreciation for the people who do this work every day. I now realize how physically demanding farming can be, and the people growing our food deserve safe working conditions and respect.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on my experience I am glad I had the chance to experience gardening myself. It helped me relate to my family and understand the stories they have shared with me. I have respect for all the people that grow our food, not only has this class taught me what gardening looks like it has also helped me appreciate nature, the hard work it takes and the people who make it possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watch our garden grow\u00a0 How one semester in the garden changed the way I think about farming, food, and the people who grow it Growing up I knew farming was part of my families life in India. I always heard stories about working in the field, growing crops and how much time and effort it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1513,"featured_media":854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-published"],"splot_meta":{"author":"Jasvir","license":"","footer":"References \u2022 Allahdua, Gabriel. Harvesting Freedom: The Life of a Migrant Worker in Canada. Chapter 20, \"The Twenty Injustices of Canada.\" \u2022 Burrell, Stephen R., & Pedersen, Cassie. \"From Men's Violence to an Ethic of Care: Ecofeminist Contributions to Green Criminology.\" Journal of Criminology, 2024. AI Acknowledgement Grammarly was used as a writing support tool to review grammar, spelling, and sentence structure. The ideas, reflections, and connections to course materials are my own."},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":857,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856\/revisions\/857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}