I never leave a workout in my garden without a good look around. In fact, in my favorite garden, the Amherst one, I work an area and ritualize my leave-taking by touching each of the ten plots. I touch them with sight. I stop long enough to see their growth — and how things have changed, usually since just a few days before. Learning to see change is important for both activists and gardeners: otherwise we think nothing is happening when all the while the painted buntings are preparing for their return.
— Donna Schaper, Grass Roots Gardening