More Lessons from my Garden

With all the wonderful weather we’ve been experiencing this summer, my garden has been gloriously prolific. Likewise, the lessons it is teaching me are too rich to be contained in one blog post. Here’s the continuation of a previous week’s lessons.

Tomato Cages and Parenting

I planted three different tomato plants this year, one much taller than the others. I should have placed cages around them as soon as I removed them from their little containers and laid them in the ground. A month or more went by before I finally purchased cages. By then, the tallest one resisted the cage like a moody teenager resists curfew. In my attempt to force one of its branches through the cage, I broke it off completely, losing a couple of marble-sized tomatoes.

When the next windstorm came along, it blew that tall plant over, cage and all. (Hubby says I should have stapled the cage into the ground with long wires. Now he tells me.) Too late to force the crooked, wonky cage back into the ground, I was left with no choice but to set the plant free from it. Except by now, some of the thicker branches were entangled with the cage. It wouldn’t budge. Finally, I just held my breath and yanked the cage straight up, surrendering whatever branches might break off. This time, I lost several golf ball-sized tomatoes.

Oh, the plant is still alive. It’s still producing. But it has not been and never will be as healthy or productive as the plants given their cage while still small.

Little children want boundaries. They feel safe knowing what the rules are and knowing someone will enforce them. When healthy boundaries are set in place early on, humans can thrive and grow and become all they were meant to be.

If you wait too long and try to play catch-up later? You will be met with resistance. It will prove far more difficult, and you’ll do a lot more damage. It doesn’t mean the person can’t still be strong and productive, but unnecessary pain will be inevitable along the way.

A Little Each Day…

If you’ve ever gone away on vacation during a garden’s prolific period, you know the pain of returning home to overgrown weeds, overripe vegetables, and dehydrated plants. It can take you days to return things to order. Plus, you’re wasting what would have been perfectly good produce if you’d been home to pick it. Sometimes there’s no reviving a plant dead from thirst, starving for nutrients, or choked out by weeds.

 

This is why good gardeners do a little each day. From the day they till the soil until they’ve pulled out the last dead plant in preparation for winter, the devoted gardener is out there. Weeding, watering, thinning, fertilizing, harvesting, and cleaning out what’s finished are far easier when done daily, bit by bit. You’ll enjoy a much healthier, productive garden.

This is true for your soul as well. A little time devoted to scripture and prayer every day produces more fruit than church once a week or a spiritual retreat once a year. Don’t choke out your soul with neglect. The weeds will gladly take over while you’re not paying attention.

Greener Where you Water…

We’ve all heard it said that if the other man’s grass is always greener, it’s probably because he waters it. This becomes even more obvious after a dry spell when your lawn turns brown while the neighbor with the sprinkler system is still enjoying lush green turf.

The application to our lives and relationships hardly needs mentioning. Marriages, friendships, and family relationships dry up with neglect. Watering takes effort. Make the effort. ‘Nuff said.

Lessons from My Garden

 It’s remarkable how much even a small garden and yard can teach you about life and faith. 

The fresher, the better 

I start every morning with a smoothie made in my little NutriBullet: a banana, a few pieces of frozen fruit, a teaspoon of hemp seed, a cup or more of almond milk, and a handful of dark green leaves like spinach or chard (these days I’m using beet leaves because that’s what’s growing). I derive great satisfaction from knowing that within minutes of pinching those leaves from their stems, their nutrients are advancing through my bloodstream like little soldiers pushing back enemy lines. 

I can’t count on the food I ate yesterday to sustain me today, and I can’t rely on last Sunday’s sermon to get me through the week. Time with God must happen every day if we’re to stay spiritually strong. God’s mercies are new every morning. (Lamentations 3:23) 

Roots of bitterness 

Every gardener knows that when you pull a weed, you must yank out the entire root or it will quickly grow back. We have a lot of crushed rock in our yard, and the weeds inevitably find their way through it. I’ve been spraying them weekly, but the environmentally friendly products available rarely reach the roots. At first, my efforts appear successful when the weeds shrivel up. But within days, I see a persistent shade of green sprouting from the middle of the deadness.

There’s a good reason the Bible calls bitterness a root. On the surface, it might manifest as anger, envy, or resentment. You do your best to get rid of those ugly sprouts through confession, snipping them off at ground level. Everything looks fine—for a while. But when a root of bitterness still lives in your heart, it eagerly shoots to the surface at the first opportunity. Pulling weeds in my yard and garden reminds me of this soul truth every time: bitterness needs rooting out. I can’t do this myself. I need God, the master gardener, to do the work in my heart. 

Thinning is difficult, but necessary 

I feel like a meanie when it’s time to thin out my carrots, beets, or onions. The poor little babies didn’t ask to be planted so close together. Why must they be sacrificed? Plus, it’s hard work! Unlike pulling weeds, you must use surgical precision or you’ll remove too much and end up with nothing. But if you don’t pull the smallest plants from an overcrowded row, the entire row will yield only small, misshapen fruit. The stronger plants need space.

What in your life is devouring time and space that you could better invest in your strengths? Do you need to sacrifice something good in order to produce the choicest fruit? 

Beautiful does not equal perfect 

As I deadheaded a basket of Calibrachoa, I made a spiritual exercise of it by imagining each dead blossom I removed represented something dark in my soul, such as a lie I was believing. I asked God to remove every lie from my heart, leaving only truth and beauty. Even as the deadness came away and the plant became more healthy-looking and beautiful, God reminded me that it had always displayed far more good stuff than bad. Although I could never manage to find every teensy flawed bit, that didn’t stop the plant from being beautiful just the same. This encouraged me so much.

You and I will never be perfect as long as we’re on this planet. Don’t despair. Life and beauty still abound. The splendor of your well-lived life can still inspire those around you.

Happy gardening!