Growing With God

Gardening is not for sissies.

You'll work muscles you didn't know you had (and they'll hurt tomorrow). Dirt and sweat are part of the package. You'll discover slimy, slithering and squirming things. After busting your gardening budget preparing the soil and planting the seeds, a 15 minute hailstorm will devastate all of your efforts. Foliage will spring up overnight and get chewed down the next day by unseen mandibles. You'll sunburn the tops of your feet making sure your garden never dries out. Fire ants will eat your root vegetables before you harvest. Squirrels will strip your corn, melon and nectarines.

Or - you'll get more zucchini and tomatoes than you can deal with! You'll eat a tender beet salad (with their steamed greens) garnished with pod peas every week all summer. You'll finally get to smell the warm-honey fragrance of pear blossoms. You'll make new friends swapping potato recipes. You'll learn that planting sweet potatoes in huge patio containers lets you harvest them much more easily and you'll enjoy their bright green vine foliage into the fall.

There's nothing like planting a tiny seed, nurturing it with your hopes and perspiration, and enjoying the fruits of your labor, recognizing that the whole process involved a complexity of miracles. It's a work of faith.

Garden is for the spirit.