Lessons from my Garden

Patience is a virtue, but not necessarily one I possess.  Maybe it's my personality, or maybe it's the culture we live in, telling us we can (and should) have whatever it is we are wanting now.  Two-Day shipping, instant downloads, pre-made and in-stock household goods and year-round produce and stocked meat counters at the groceries... we hardly have to wait on anything. And I seriously don't like to. 

Even gardening has become more "instant" than ever before.  We became used to buying our vegetable plants as seedlings, and now in 4" pots, ready to fruit as soon as--or even before we've planted them in the ground.  Flowers for the front porch?   They're there for the taking!  Big, beautiful and brightly colored arrangements, already arranged and potted if you want.  For $50 and an hour of my time, my porch could almost instantly be transformed. 

Want to connect more to your food?  Grow your own apples? That 5-year apple tree, almost ready to fruit is sitting at Lowes for a modest price, waiting for you to take it home and plant. Better yet, why grow your own at all?  The U-pick orchard is full of apple trees--and pumpkins and strawberries for that matter--all planted, watered and nurtured by experts, just waiting for you spend a care-free afternoon picking those luscious fruits that were planted, watered and cared for by someone else. 

Instant purchases.  Instant Beauty.  Instant gratification.  Instant success.  

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Does that sound like your gardening experience to date? That was us too! We would try to start seeds, but it was too much work and too difficult. One mistake, like leaving them out in a frost, leaving them out in a storm, or forgetting to water them--yes, we've done all of those--left us plantless at planting time.  It was convenient (and not that expensive) just buy that 6 pack of hardy, ready-to-plant seedlings.

Until this year.  This year, I took starting my seeds seriously. This year I babied my baby plants like our stomachs depended on it.  This year, I won my battle with "instant."  I wandered the plant sections at the store, noting with dread how big their starts were compared to my puny little seedlings.  If I bought the 4" pots, I'd get a faster harvest, more assured success and an almost instantly filled-out garden. I worried, "What if mine are stunted, and never grow?" I held my ground--mostly.  

I patiently watered and cared for my little seedlings, trusting the process.  Trusting God's design.  Trusting the process by which generations of gardeners have begun the gardens that fed their families year-round.  Trusting a process that until this year, I don't think I had ever seen done successfully in person, at least not since I was a young child.

Eventually, my seedlings were big enough to plant and I was even rewarded with lots of extras when I divided the seedlings that were growing two or three to a pot.  Today, I look out at my garden, filled with young plants, almost all of which I started from seed: the 1st year asparagus I felt sure I'd lost in the frost, carrot seedlings I'd thought must have been too old to germinate and almost sowed something else in its place, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, peppers, and peas, all springing to life, growing well, and bringing life to my once bare little garden. 

With each round of plants that I have sown into the rich black soil, I gain a little bit more confidence in my ability to feed my family from this garden, I feel a little bit more trust that while I can't see below the soil's surface, things ARE changing and growing, and patience to give nature time to do its work. 
 
I see all of the invaluable lessons, that the Lord was waiting to teach me.  Lessons once taught to His children every year, often enough to ingrain them into their consciousnesses.  Lessons that perhaps we've lost a bit of today, but could reclaim, by getting back to the garden.

Trust.  Patience.  Perseverance.  Diligence.  
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Happy Homesteading