The Greenhouse at the Correctional Center

I volunteer once a week teaching gardening at the minimum-security correctional facility outside our town. It's not something I ever expected to do. It's become one of my favorite things in my life.

The men tend a greenhouse full of tomatoes, peppers, herbs and flowers. They are gentle with the seedlings in a way that surprised me at first. One man, a quiet guy in his forties, has a gift for orchids. Another keeps a careful notebook of everything he plants.

In August we harvested the tomatoes and they made salsa for the whole facility. One of the men told me it was the first thing he'd ever grown. "My grandmother had a garden," he said. "Now I know why she loved it."

The vegetables go to the local food pantry. The flowers go to the hospital. The men go home, eventually, with green thumbs and a little more patience. So do I.