God’s Garden

1 June 2010

My Husband affectionately calls me the “destroyer of all living things,” when it comes to any living plant that requires tending. The only thing I have successfully grown is grass. I know nothing about gardening. It was my job to weed my mom’s garden with my sisters, and I decided that I didn’t like gardening then. I DO NOT GARDEN……until this year.

I was supposed to plant a garden about 2 years ago. God has been working on my heart and told me that I needed to learn to garden. I argued in my head with Him, gave every example of my failures as a gardener, and promptly put it off.

Last summer, I KNEW I was supposed to start my garden, but I was stubborn. Instead, I checked out a few books at the library and read about gardening. Still feeling compelled, I talked to a few friends about gardening. (”I’m learning God, I need a foundation before I jump in, right. You don’t expect me just to trash the yard for a project that I don’t even want to do…..do you?!)

To look like I was obeying, I even planted a little container garden in pots that I had to drag inside every night for several months. The result was less than reassuring, everything but the garlic died in a disaster of too much water, bad soil, not enough sun, and tamping off, plus we had a plague of fruit flies that came in every time the pots came inside. (”See Lord, I tried. I failed. I am not a gardener. I ~~don’t want to~~ can’t do this. And WHAT is up with these fruit flies!?! Lord, please smite them, dead!”)

This spring, I was told to garden again. I had my doubts that it mattered in the grand scheme of things. Why does God want me to garden. Doesn’t He tell people to be missionaries, not once, have I ever heard that God told someone to, “Arise and go garden!” God was persistent. I was finally convicted strongly enough to realize I just needed to obey. This is what happened next.

The boys and I dug up strips of sod with our bare hands and 1 shovel for 3 days. Hubby wasn’t entirely thrilled that I was trashing the yard because I had not proved my gardening prowess with the whole container-garden, thing. Hubby and Grandpa came home with some garden tools. This made everything a LOT easier.

Once we got the sod pulled, we treated the entire yard for bugs, because we had found all manner of nasties as we pulled up the sod and I feared for my children after seeing the ticks and other evil vermin that were under my grass.

Now we had 270 square feet in 3 dirt strips and not a clue what to do next. I remembered a friend had given me a book on gardening and a few packets of seeds. I pulled those out and drew up a plan. My mother in law was a little bit baffled as to why I was doing this, but she was very a great source of help at the gardening center when I started to get overwhelmed.

I prayed about the dirt. It was very sandy and I knew that Hubby wasn’t wanting to spend a bunch of money on my doomed project. God worked that out and Hubby had the compost dirt delivered to my driveway. The boys and I started carting wheelbarrows of compost dirt to my strips of sand. As a surprise, hubby carted close to 4 tons of compost to my garden in 1 day. (He’s awesome!)

The garden was ready to go in. The kids and I planted the garden according to the plan we had drawn up. It wasn’t perfect and some things got changed a bit, but it was in. We prayed over the little seedlings as we watered the dirt dirt strips each day, for several weeks. If this was going to work, God had to make it happen, because I knew I didn’t know what I was doing.

The plants began to come up. God’s garden is doing well. We’ve survived a couple bouts of leaf eaters (using dish soap sprayed on the leaves), and some other nasties that are trying to eat the stalks. We prayed about them, and most of them left and I only lost a few stalks of beans. We’ve eaten 2 tomatoes and 2 potatoes, so far.

I’m still not sure why it was important to God that I garden. I’m not sure if it was about learning to garden or learning to obey, either way, the kids and I have learned a lot already, this summer.

Below are pictures of God’s garden today: We have planted 42 stalks of corn, 6 cucumber plants, 6 pumpkin, 9 yellow squash, 36 peas, 4 regular watermelon, 4 sugar baby watermelon, 4 zucchini, 8 cantaloupe, 3 fancy gourds, 2 cherry tomatoes, 4 large tomatoes, 2 red sweet peppers, and a bunch of potatoes.
1st Garden 6-1-10 God’s Garden