The Garden Doesn’t Owe Me Anything
I used to think gardening was about growing vegetables. It turns out, gardening is about showing up after disappointment.
When I first planted the garden, I envisioned every meal would have some kind of garden-fresh element to it. I didn’t even waste time on seeds. I invested in fruit-bearing starter plants that transitioned really well into the prepared soil. I’d removed every element of obstacle for those plants to fruit…or so I thought.
I planted tomatoes expecting to make salsa. Instead, I harvested about 10 cherry tomatoes, barely enough to make a salsa verde for a family dinner.
After the initial fruiting, it seems like my garden walks are focused on noticing what’s going wrong with the garden, more than what’s going right.
The basil is too long, growing flowers and wilting.
The peppers are producing only 1, 2 or 3 peppers at a time. I waited one day too late to harvest the peppers and the squirrels had ravaged the first two peppers, leaving one barely big enough for my husband and I to share it as a taco stuffed bell pepper. I almost cried seeing one last pepper, but it felt silly to cry over a pepper.
The tomato plant, oh it keeps growing and vining and flowering. Probably ⅔’s of the vine is covered in yellowing leaves. Flowering bunches appear at the tops of the vine, and as soon as a tomato appears, it either disappears or shows up half-eaten by thirsty squirrels. There are trails of half-eaten tomatoes dropped between the bushes, no doubt from hungry, greedy squirrels. To be fair, in this Florida heat, I don’t really blame them.
The lemon tree and blueberry bush are giving nothing but leaves at this point. The cilantro died after only one clipping.
Yet every morning, I can’t wait to walk outside and see what I’m to discover. As if I’ve planted magic beans and I’m waiting for a fantastic beanstalk to arrive. Instead, I’m problem solving ways to get this garden to get back to producing.
I know the garden doesn’t owe me anything. But it feels like I owe it one more opportunity to try.
Why do we feel like something is broken simply because it’s not producing or performing the way we thought it would? We don't just do this with gardens. We do it with marriages, friendships, dreams, and sometimes even our faith. Some things take more time. Some things take more perseverance. All of these things require hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. Hope to try one more time. Hope to plant one more seed.
After significant seasons of loss in my own life, I’ve learned that God always gives me what I need, when I need it. But how it shows up, isn’t always in the way that I thought it would.
So what can we do after loss and disappointment? We can look for ways to try again. Like that little patch of scrappy dirt by the fence. That might make a good spot for a pumpkin patch. But that’s a different story for another day.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8-9
