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WHERE TO FIND US:

– Our Website: https://rootsandrefuge.com
-Miah’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@miahsworkshop
-My Cooking Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@The_Farmers_Table
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-Order Coffee & Tea from our roaster: https://www.beulahroastingco.com
-Our Amazon Wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/SFA0IZHZRCOZ?ref_=wl_share
-Music is by my friend Daniel Smith

45 Comments

  1. I discovered you during the pandemic while I was in a 10 week long lock down. By now I not only moved from one village to another (within Ireland) but moved countries too. By now my "garden" is on my rooftop terrace in Spain. Only a container/ raised bed garden, but I am discovering completely new ways and things to grow in the subtropics 🌱💚

  2. This is my 6th year gardening with you . Thank you for being an inspiration for me to garden and walk with the Lord.

  3. When you change up the goals each year and what the focus is on, the garden becomes a new exciting experience each year. Last year I didn't sit in the garden as much and I missed that. This year, my goal is to have a relationship with the plants, share my energy and love with the plants,and improve the maintenance.. supporting(staking), trimming, etc. And just sitting with them.

  4. I’ve been here since the beginning!! I adore you and your family!! I’m in Ottawa Canada!! I have watched since you made the kale chips for your boys!! I still use that recipe today!!
    Loads of LOVE…. you insprired me in more ways than you can know!! I finally started a youtube channel and your greenhouse has also inspired my tiny one! Lol
    THANK YOU!!

  5. I started watching your videos about four years ago when I started to garden. I started with one Greenstalk. Now I have three and 10 garden beds. I’ve learned so much from you. ❤

  6. I think I was one of your first 5,000 subscribers. You are a big reason why I started gardening and how I continue to learn. You changed my life and I am forever grateful!!! I garden to feel the joy and sorrow of success and failure of growing my own food! We are healthier for eating more food from our backyard! I am mentally healthier for getting out of my own head and play in the soil!

  7. I like your idea of having the boys help you in the garden and having them know that you intentionally planted things they like to eat. As well as planting the varieties that you like also. I always enjoy your videos and point of view on life in general. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us . I’m trying to not buy so much from the grocery and preserving what I grow ! 🙏🏻

  8. Last year we created a new larger garden space. It was the 1st time that I planted so many flowers. I really enjoy the beauty of them, but I also love all the bees that come to visit. My why is my sanity lol. Ok well not just my sanity, but also knowing where our food comes from…. fresh eating! I also love to make preserves and enjoy them all year long. I enjoy sharing them with my husbands older family memebers who can not do it physically anymore. There is a sense of pride when uou grow something and also when you share it. My youngest is a picky eater, however when she is in the garden with me she will nibble on a strawberry, or a couple of blueberries. I am over joyed when she also will eat pea pods right off the plant! So to me it makes it all worth it when she helps me grow and eats with me. In the end my why is JOY as well. It makes my heart happy to grow and to provide fresh food for my family and a few friends. Bless you all! Love from VA

  9. I have been watching since you lived in AR. I have one of your books signed by you at Rory Feek's farm a couple of years ago. Pictures with you and Miah. Such a joy to watch your content.

  10. I moved at the beginning of the month from VA to FL. From 2 acres to a mobile home park with not much of a yard except sandspurs. So, I am reclaiming the yard. I have put down garden fabric and I'm roping it off and making it into a happy garden space where my grandchildren and neighbor kids can come and get their hands in the dirt without being covered with sandspurs. LET THE FUN BEGIN!!

  11. Absolutely inspiring. 🥰
    Literally burst into tears when u explained the approach for the year with the children. What a beautiful concept. 🥰🥰
    I’m taking a similar approach this coming year as you.
    Why? Well, I went 0-100 in two years and by year 2 (last year) I was in the same boat as you. Super successful but absolutely overwhelmed. Upside, We ate well and still are 🥰 the chickens and the compost ate really well too. 🤣
    This year I’m excited to rain it in, eat fresh and do what I love. 🥰 Cheers to our 2025 gardens 🥰

  12. You literally were my very first experience with gardening on YouTube. The Lord and my mom planted the gardening seed in my heart, and a girl named Jess kicked it into high gear. I have literally watched every single one of your vlogs more than twice. Let me clarify that Hubby and I live in a neighborhood (with great neighbors, MUCH TO CLOSE), about an hour and a half north of San Diego, on .18 of an acre that includes a good-sized pool. We have TERRIBLE soil, so thanks to your introduction, Jess, I have 6 Greenstalks (Hubby's eyes rolling) on my patio that I literally tend to and TALK TO as my babies! I have a huge NEED to be out there every day, if even for a moment. I talk to my plants, my outdoor cat, Marshmallow, and the nature that calls my yard their home….thank you, Jess, for reminding me that I truly love gardening, growing food, and growing beautiful things! 💙 💚 God bless you! 🙏

  13. I've been around since 2019 when I first came to YouTube one late night and found like minded people! My gardens have morphed and changed and my reasons have changed ..this year I'm aiming for less variety but more production and methods that will help me manage and maintain. I still watch the old tour videos from Arkansas on cold winter mornings!!

  14. Im chronically ill and my goal every year is to mass preserve 1 thing. Last yr i did tomatoes, this year will be green beans.

  15. I’m so happy you are going through this revelation about your why. I’ve so missed your earlier garden tours and strolls. I say this with all the love and respect I have, but I have felt the shift in your passion. I miss your joy and excitement and awe when you were just doing this for yourself. It’s what made me fall in love with gardening and take the leap to do this myself many years ago now. I know this is your job, but you still deserve to feel the same connection to your garden without the pressure to appease an audience. I honestly think doing things just for you (your heart garden) will draw more people in and continue to inspire just as much if not more 💚

  16. This is my Beyond Organic year. It's not just about the gardening style and following rules, it's about having the garden serve me and my family this year instead of it consuming so much of our time. Were going big on automation and tech. We live in the modern world, I don't want to be a luddite and rob myself of a full life because I won't progress and stubbornly cling to the hardest way possible. We should be able to have a productive garden and high quality food and still a normal life with jobs and kids and all the usual things.

  17. You are always inspiring me in some way, so I bless you! I have returned to gardening, because of Grow Bags and Geenstalks, and it makes me so happy. Planning my space and purchasing seeds begins my growing season, and I have to reign in my expectations. I agree it's easy to overdo! Jess, I love your approach to life; you are so eloquent. Keep writing down your thoughts; they are poetic, philosophical, and timeless. I look forward to the time I get to spend with you!

  18. I love that you are embracing joy, simplicity, and health/heart (in all the ways)!
    Healthy, happy Jess = a Better world! You changed significantly and noticeably after your big announcement a few months back about downsizing and accepting your home as a "home." Thank you for being real!
    Don't forget to plant the flowers.
    What's your "why"

  19. when your garden is your happy place you have to do what makes you happy between the raised beds and green houses your garden is 4 times larger the what most people have posabily more then 4 times i injoy watching your channel even if you only have a 4×8 raised bed if it makes you happy then its just fine because it makes you happy thats the main reason why we garden

  20. My why is because the garden is my happy place. Because I want to know where our food comes from. Because I want my kids to be able to pick and eat in the garden without fear of what they are eating. Because someday we will have land in the country and my garden will be able to be bigger. We also homeschool and the garden gives plenty of teaching opportunities. ❤

  21. The first video I saw was about using cattle panels for vertical gardening. And I've been hooked on your channel ever since. You inspired me to build a 50' x50' garden space that I love.
    Thank you for documenting your journey and allowing us along for the ride❤I've learned so much and grown in ways I never imagined. Thank you.

  22. Learning to grow my own food and pretty things too, has been one of the most peaceful and in many ways, one of the most spiritual things I’ve ever done. I feel such an immense amount of gratitude and happiness. The last time I felt this kind of PURE joy was maybe around 7 or 8 when I was in love with baking. Feeding my family something i grew with my full commitment to and whole heart feels so rewarding🥰. Thank you for everything you’ve taught me in the last 5 years🫶🏾

  23. I'm happy that you're going back to a seasonal 'heart garden'. I garden because it fills my heart with joy, and dreams of the sun in my face and talking to my little plant babies is what gets me through the dreary Vermont winter. Logically, I know I'll save money by growing more of my food and eating clean, live food, of course. But the garden is my playground! Thank you for sharing your plans with us.💚💖💜

  24. First impression all those tats. Next omgawd she loves this like I do. Deeply. Seeds and dirt best thing ever.

  25. I've been canning and following along with the 2025 Canuary videos. I'm also doing garden planning, which started with a single packet of seeds (celery) and a domed heating mat. Bought some locally grown meats, will continue. Hoping to get a few chickens. My bee nucs are already ordered to plug in the losses from the drought last year. I had brain cancer and lost my garden , chickens, and bees 4.5 yrs ago and now gradually it has taken me this amount of time to get back to where I feel energized. I remember watching you many years ago, before cancer, starting carrots under a plank.

    The pendulum swings in life.

  26. I started watching in 2020 but have gone back and watched most of the older videos. I am looking forward to seeing you find your joy again. My goal this year is still to produce lots of food for myself and my extended family but I want to expand the beauty in my garden and orchard. I am starting a lot of perennial flowers and bushes tot he landscape and have lots of seeds for annual flowers as well to add that heart joy beauty to the space so it looks more like my aesthetic. I did more succession sowing last year and that will continue and hopefully expand.

  27. I found you in April 2020
    Covid confined me to home.
    My desire to grow a salsa garden to up lift my spirits.
    I am blessed to have found learned and come to love you and your family.
    ThankYou for being you.
    ❤️💡🙏

  28. I have an infant daughter and we are selling our house, trying to at least, to relocate. I was 9 months pregnant and starting seeds last year. This year, I am so conflicted. Do I skip the season? Oh, the thought makes my heartbreak. Do I go all put and risk not being in this home, on this land by harvest time? Do I go halfway and simply container garden so that I can bring my plants with me but have a much smaller harvest? I've gotten so far in the decision making process that I cannot not grow SOMETHING. I want to watch my daughter watch in wonder when we grow food from tiny seeds. I am such a dreamer, it's not my nature to be conservative or practical. Thank you for this video.

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