Before I ever planted a seed in my own garden, before allotment mornings and flower beds, there was the Caspian Sea.

I grew up surrounded by a landscape that felt almost too beautiful to belong to ordinary life… endless green mountains wrapped in mist, rice fields stretching into the horizon, orchards heavy with fruit, and gardens overflowing with herbs, vegetables, and flowers. Nature was never something separate from life there. It was life.

The air smelled of rain, soil, wood smoke, and growing things.

Both sides of my family lived close to the land. My grandparents believed deeply in homegrown food, not because it was fashionable, but because it was simply how life was meant to be lived. Everything had a season. Everything had patience. Rice was harvested by hand, fruit was picked fresh from the orchard, herbs were dried in bunches by the windows, and meals were built from whatever the earth had generously given that day.

I still remember tables filled with flavours that cannot truly be recreated anywhere else… tomatoes warmed by the sun, cucumbers that tasted sweet and fresh, walnuts gathered from the trees, homemade preserves, herbs picked minutes before dinner, and fruits so fragrant they filled entire rooms.

There was something sacred about it all.

As a child, I didn’t realise how rare that life was. I thought everyone grew up climbing fruit trees, walking through gardens alive with bees, and falling asleep to the sound of rain against mountain villages near the sea. I thought it was normal to know exactly where your food came from, to watch seasons shape daily life, and to see people treat the earth with both respect and gratitude.

Now, looking back, I realise those memories planted something much deeper within me.

They taught me that gardening is not only about growing food or flowers. It is about connection: to the earth, to family, to memory, and to the slower rhythms of life that modern living often tries to rush us away from.

Even today, every seed I plant carries a piece of that childhood with it.

Every harvest reminds me of my grandparent’s hands stained from soil and fruit. Every flower blooming in the garden feels like a quiet conversation with the landscapes that raised me. And every moment spent outdoors brings me back, in some small way, to what felt like the happiest place on earth.

Perhaps that is why I created Elysium Diaries.

Not only to document gardens and harvests, but to preserve a way of living and feeling that I never want to lose… one rooted in nature, simplicity, family, and the quiet magic of growing things.

Because sometimes the places we come from continue growing inside us long after we leave them.