Tending Gardens
It worked! It actually worked! I put the ridiculously small seeds in the ground, and look what happened!
I’ve been tending to this garden (I prefer to call it a farm) for 10 weeks now. Tending looks like waking up, making coffee, and walking out to the backyard to look at the 2x8 foot planter bed. Sometimes I delicately pick out leaves and sticks, sometimes I cover holes dug by squirrels, sometimes I make sure the squash isn’t engulfing the cilantro too much (don’t plant cilantro next to squash). Some days it seems all there is to do is water it because I’m told plants need watering regularly. It’s a lot of seemingly insignificant, careful, and small movements.
And then some days, it seems like magic happens. Cucumber tendrils appear overnight wrapping tightly around the trellis, spinach is ready to pick (I ate my first leaves today!), and did you know zucchini plants have female and male flowers? Cue the bees and butterflies. Google told me that the male flowers fertilize the female flowers, and then fall off their stems. The fertilized female flowers grow the actual zucchinis! Sound familiar?? That’s freaking creation! All because I put some seeds in the ground, watered, and tended it.
My garden is teaching me a lot about my relationship with God and how He invites me to tend to it. After my coffee and garden rhythm, I head to my little balcony, grab my journal, bible, and a stack of other books and begin to simply look at my heart. I remind myself it’s there, and then I remind myself that God is there. I take notice of things in it: resentment, joy, curiosity, peace, distraction, emotion, and so on. From there I respond to whatever is in my gut. Sometimes I’m moved to read scripture or a book. Sometimes I write to understand the things I took notice of. Sometimes I sit and stare and listen to the creation around me: birds, clouds, trees, etc.
Tending requires patience and small movements. It first, though, requires me to show up to my plants and to my heart everyday so I can slowly and gently look through the leaves for signs of growth and areas that need cleaning.