We Don’t Grow Food, But We Do
How a Head of Napa Cabbage Reveals the Hidden Work of the Garden
By Josh Singleton | Vision and Lead Cultivator, The Neighborhood Garden Project
People often assume The Neighborhood Garden Project exists to grow food. They see raised beds, herbs, vegetables, pollinator plots, and harvest buckets and think the vegetables are the mission. I understand why. That is what a garden looks like on the surface. But what we are actually cultivating is something much deeper. That is why it feels confusing at times. We say we do not grow food, yet I am standing here holding a full, beautiful head of Bilko Napa cabbage in my hand.
Both things are true, but not in the way people expect.
This Napa cabbage tells a story most will never see. It did not form by accident. It did not grow because we forced anything or chased outcomes. It only took shape through steady rhythm, steady presence, and steady willingness. It required patience. It required consistency. It required us to show up without being asked. It required us to live at a pace the world rarely honors.
In that slow and steady posture, the cabbage became a mirror. It revealed what was growing in me long before it revealed anything above the soil.
This cabbage shows alignment. It only tightens into a head when the internal growth has been consistent over time. It grows from the inside out, the same way Kingdom identity grows in a person. It reminded me that nothing whole forms overnight. Everything strong forms slowly, layer by layer, through small faithful decisions.
This cabbage shows identity. Before it ever closed into a head, it rooted. Before anything visible appeared, it settled who it was underground. It reminded me that I cannot rush into assignment without first being rooted in identity. When I try to offer something I am not grounded in, I feel the collapse. The cabbage refuses to pretend. It simply becomes what it was seeded to be.
This cabbage shows rhythm. It grows at the pace of creation, not the pace of American culture. It honors slow days, quiet days, cloudy days, and days when it looks like nothing is happening at all. It reminded me that growth is not measured by how busy I am but by how surrendered I am. It pushed back against the temptation to hurry. It held its form because its rhythm stayed true.
This cabbage shows willingness. It formed because I kept showing up. Not perfectly. Not impressively. Just faithfully. The work was never about making something happen. It was about agreeing with the process and letting God work in ways I could not see. The cabbage revealed my own inner formation as much as it revealed its own.
This cabbage shows Kingdom economy. Nothing in it is wasted. Every leaf protects, stores, supports, and gives. It becomes nourishment simply by being what it is designed to be. That is the invitation God keeps placing before us. Serve from identity. Give from overflow. Become a person who nourishes others not through performance but through presence.
This cabbage shows peace. It formed in a world that never stopped moving, yet it stayed rooted, quiet, and calm. It listened to the soil, not the noise around it. It taught me again that peace is not the absence of pressure but the presence of alignment.
So yes, we say we do not grow food. And in one way that is absolutely true. Food is not the mission. People are the mission. Identity is the mission. Rhythm is the mission. Surrender is the mission. Formation is the mission.
But when those things take root in us, the soil testifies.
The food grows because we are growing.
The cabbage forms because our identity is forming.
The harvest comes because willingness has taken root.
The head of Napa I am holding is not the product of this project. It is the witness. It is the outward picture of the inward work God is doing in me and in the people who come here. It is a sign that when we return to the soil, we return to who we were created to be.
We do not grow food, but we do.
And when we do, it reveals everything about what is happening beneath the surface.
