Learn Hardcore Turkish: Sen toprağa tohum ektiğinden beri bahçe her gün daha yeşil görünüyor. - Since you planted the seed in the soil, the garden has looked greener every day.

-den beri literally means “since” and marks the starting point of a period of time. To build ektiğinden beri (“since you sowed”), you go through these steps:

Start with the verb root + past tense: ekti- (“you sowed”).
Add the participle/nominalizer suffix -ği (a variant of -DIK) to get ektiği (“the act of sowing”).
Attach the ablative case -nden (“from”), yielding ektiğinden (“from your sowing”).
Finally add beri: ektiğinden beri = “since you sowed”.

Why is Sen used at the beginning of the sentence? Can it be omitted?

In Turkish the personal pronoun is usually optional because the verb ending already shows the person. Sen (“you”) is included here for emphasis or clarity. You can drop it without changing the meaning:
“Toprağa tohum ektiğinden beri…” is perfectly natural.

Why does toprağa have the -a ending?

The -a is the dative case, meaning “to” or “into.” In toprağa tohum ektin, it tells you where the seeds were sown—into the soil.

Why doesn’t tohum take an accusative ending (-u)? Shouldn’t it be tohumu?

In Turkish, definite/specific direct objects take the accusative ending (-ı/-i/-u/-ü). Here tohum is general/indefinite (“some seeds”), so the ending is dropped. If you wanted to say “you sowed the (specific) seed,” you could use tohumu ektin.

Why is the action of sowing in the past tense (ekti) but the garden’s greenness in the present continuous (görünüyor)?

Because the sowing happened at a specific point in the past, we use past tense. The garden’s becoming greener, however, is an ongoing, continuous process, so Turkish uses the -iyor (present continuous) form to express that it keeps looking greener over time.

What does görünmek mean here, and why not use olmak?

Görünmek means “to appear” or “to look,” focusing on how something seems to the observer. Bahçe her gün daha yeşil görünüyor = “the garden looks greener every day.”
If you used olmak, e.g. “bahçe…daha yeşil oluyor,” you’d be saying “the garden is becoming greener,” which emphasizes the change itself rather than its appearance.

What is the role of daha in daha yeşil?

Daha is the comparative marker, meaning “more.” Placed before an adjective it creates a comparison: yeşil = “green,” daha yeşil = “greener.” You can intensify further with daha da yeşil = “even greener.”

What does her gün add to the sentence, and is its position flexible?

Her gün means “every day” and expresses the frequency of the garden looking greener. Turkish word order is fairly flexible, so you could also say “Her gün bahçe daha yeşil görünüyor,” but placing her gün just before the verb is the most natural position for a time-frequency adverb.