I made a wrong turn on the way to the OxGrow community garden and showed up to the work session with my boots already muddy. After the session, some fellow volunteers kindly showed me the correct route — one that did not involve slogging through two rain-soaked sports fields — but by then, I had plenty more mud from the garden plot to track back over the pavement.

Mud aside, I spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon helping out in the garden. Though most of the summer vegetables had already been harvested, there was still plenty to do to prepare the plot for the winter. Along with students from the Oxford Conservation Society, some lovely volunteers, and a very friendly magpie in search of biscuits, I helped clear out a greenhouse and learned the best way to prune apple trees (trim new growth and any overlapping branches every year). Abundance Oxford, another local group that harvests excess fruits and vegetables from back gardens across the city and redistributes the produce to community organizations, was hosting an apple-pressing event in the nearby Hogacre Cafe, and I had the chance to try some fresh-pressed Bramley apple juice while sheltering from the rain.

Working with the soil was so satisfying, especially after a long week cooped up in the college libraries. The task of preparing the garden for the changing seasons made me feel more connected to nature, like I was actually a part of the ecosystem rather than an interloper just passing through. The modern landscape of the U.K. has been shaped by its long history of agriculture — archaeologists estimate that farming arrived in Britain about 6,000 years ago! — but with the rise of industrialized agriculture, many people are growing more disconnected from where their food comes from. OxGrow envisions a sustainable food system that strengthens the biosphere and promotes wellbeing, and provides a space where people can connect with the land and with each other. In England, where so much land is essentially private property, and in Oxford, which is crisscrossed with divisions between the town and the university, community spaces like the OxGrow garden that bring people together are particularly valuable. Volunteering left me feeling fulfilled in more ways than one — a part of nature, and a part of the Oxford community.