Gardening for Abundance with Brian Brigantti

Tell us about your journey from New York City to Tennessee.

There wasn’t really a plan when I first moved here; it was to get away from the city and find peace and quiet. And I was so traveling back and forth between New York City and Tennessee to pursue photography in New York, but rest and exist and be in Tennessee. And it was a really nice balance for a while. But then the pandemic hit, and I couldn’t travel anymore. Suddenly I had all this free time and I was like, what am I going to do? My partner loves to garden, but he’s never focused on food production or anything. He loves to landscape and make a beautiful, beautiful landscape. But with the uncertainty of where our food would come from and all the time I suddenly had, I thought it was a great time to learn how to grow our food. And I kid you not; the moment I broke ground, it felt like a homecoming. It felt like an awakening. And I haven’t looked back since.

Why do you think everyone should garden? Why is it so important?

I feel like the natural world, Mother Nature is literally the pure embodiment of abundance, the energy of abundance. Nature is the pure embodiment of that. So when you start gardening, when you tap into the natural world, if you allow yourself to just be and exist in the space and really observe what’s happening around you, you begin to see that your garden, when you start a garden, it becomes a reflection of yourself and the world around you. And it teaches you, as you are learning, how to take care of and tend to these plants. It is, in the same breath, teaching you how to take care of yourself and the community around you.

There are so many reflections in the natural world. It is literally parallel. The garden has taught me so much about myself, allowing me to align more deeply with myself and the people around me. And, I don’t know, living a simpler life, you understand what really matters, what’s really important at the end of the day.

And a garden is a great place to ground yourself, refocus yourself, and learn all of those things; you’re cultivating abundance within yourself, not just in the actual garden in the process. So I always recommend someone start a garden because it’ll do wonders for your spiritual and overall mental well-being, as well as physical well-being. It’s a physical labor. It’s not easy getting out there in the grueling sun and getting a garden going. But the sustenance that comes from having a garden and having something so fresh, so nutritious through and through; it’s just endless benefits, starting a garden.

Gardening for Abundance: Your Guide to Cultivating a Bountiful Veggie Garden and a Happier Life, by Brian Brigantti (Page Street Publishing, 2024).

Learn more

Listen to the full podcast episode with Brian here, learn more about Red Leaf Ranch on redleafranch.com, and follow him on Instagram @redleafranch. You can get his book, Gardening for Abundance: Your Guide to Cultivating a Bountiful Veggie Garden and a Happier Life, anywhere books are sold.