From as early as I can remember, my grandparents inspired me with their love for gardening and growing food. They were enthusiastic, knowledgeable and instinctively knew how to grow vegetables and fruit. As a young child I would spend many days in the home garden with them, helping to weed the garden or pluck the ripe fruit and tender vegetables. During school holidays, I would spend hours outside in the sun with them, putting precious seeds into the ground, or making holes for the seedlings which had been carefully tended. These visits would also coincide with visits to aunts and uncles, and neighbours, where conversations inevitably centred around crops, harvests and food. Whenever I think back on my life and wonder why, as an adult, I chose to grow food, I realise that this love of seeds, the soil and gardens and my connection with nature rose out of these foundational experiences with my grandparents and the community in which I thrived. Now I spend most of my time at home in the small town of Norton, about 45 km from the busy central business district of Harare in Zimbabwe. Today in particular, I feel very relaxed as I sit in my room, listening to the whistling sounds from my chicks in a brooder box and some neighbours singing energetically and passionately at a community gathering. Over the past three years, this place has become my new home and it has offered me a serene environment away from the hustle and bustle of the city. I have grown to become a micro-scale farmer working in my garden and chicken coup.