30 Favourite Things #15

  A big garden.  I’m so thankful that our neighbours wanted to make it a joint effort to have a big garden. And a bigger garden we had, that’s for certain!!  It was really quite a big deal to keep that garden weeded, watered and planted and replanted and replanted.  Things grew, things died.  Things looked beautiful, things looked horrible.  O, all the replanting?  Well, for some reason or another, several things either didn’t grow well or grew so well that the bugs loved them – thus the replanting of several things – several times. 

We were trying to go all organic.  But somewhere along the way, in a few places we abandoned fighting with organic resources and headed to off war armed with some chemicals.  And, by the way, I did that with my roses, too.  I decided the kinder, gentler way was just not going to work this year and so I went to the Co-op and got some Ortho Rose spray…. and voilà! the pesky aphids and molds went away. 

That big garden was a whole bunch of hard work — but it was great for so many reasons.  I think one of the most profitable aspects of that garden — and any garden, for that matter, is the great benefit of studied quiet.  It takes a lot of time to do a lot of work — or a lot of weeding — and both are pretty incredible incentives to think on Scripture.  So, it’s probably one of the most important activities I spend time doing each day — kind of a quiet time, study time, praise and worship time all rolled into one. O, the sermons that come from the garden.  How instructive are the plants and weeds… the soil, seeds and water.  How inspirational is the diligent work.

I loved that it was sunny a lot.  I loved that the garden was hard work and the days were sometimes exhausting.  I loved that we got sunburned.  I love that we got so dirty.  I love that we had water fights.  I love that we learned about so much stuff that didn’t work very well.  I love that the children were always working alongside us and we all had the great satisfaction when something did work out real well!

I’m glad we planted a lot of corn. A few times.  I’m glad we planted lots of beans, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, onions, squash, green beans, lettuce — and flowers! — I’m so thankful our friend had presence of mind to plant a bunch of flowers at the ends of each row!  Isn’t that sweet?!?!  I am really looking forward to that aspect!!

You know what we didn’t plant enough of?  Yes!  Zucchini!  Ha!  ‘Bet you never heard any gardener say that!!  🙂

So… we have the seeds, we have the dreams, we have the enthusiasm and we have the garden tilled.  All we need now is patience to wait for the sunny days!!