If you’ve been here for a little while, you probably know that this has been an unconventional gardening year for me. Ever since we moved to this property I have been an enthusiastic gardener, starting seeds as early as I can every year—sometimes even in late December—and using a shotgun approach to seeding by overplanting dozens of varieties and hoping something sticks. I’m an avid interplanter and I’m always trying to maximize my yields by planting way more than I have space for, on the off-chance it somehow works out.
This has had…variable results. Sometimes it has worked, sometimes not. Every year it seems that I get a bumper crop of something, usually one or two somethings, so it felt like I was succeeding. Since I always had fun, I didn’t question my own methods.
Until last year.
Last year’s growing season was just downright frustrating. The weather was unkind, treating us with an early heatwave that zapped our spring plants (including our beloved peas) and a long, cold, wet start to summer that stunted every other summer plant. We got zero tomatoes, zero peppers, zero corn, and a couple of misshapen squash. Less peas and beans than usual. Hardly any greens to speak of. It was just…meh. Severely meh.
It kind of killed my buzz, to be honest. It brought the reality home that gardening truly isn’t for the faint of heart, and some years are going to be less fortunate than others. My heart was faint, that’s for sure.
At the dawn of 2023 I couldn’t even see myself planting a garden this year, that’s how much I felt I had been burned. I couldn’t even look at my extensive seed collection or think about tidying up the greenhouse to prep it for the season. I was overwhelmed at the thought.
Around mid-January, I pulled out ALL of my seed-packets and created a severely simplified version of a garden plan. No shotgun approach this time. I was going to be strategic, and I was only going to grow things that a) I knew were forgiving, and b) that were staple crops that we love. I narrowed it down to about ten beloved types of plants that are easy to eat and even easier to store. No experiments. No overplanting. Back to basics.
It still took me a few months to get going. But one day, in late March, I found myself wandering around my sleeping, untouched garden with my coffee, and I started to notice the signs of stirring life. My perennials returning, the plants that never failed me, even in the heat and the cold of last year. Every season their tenacity fills me with joy. Rhubarb, mint, lemon balm, lovage, marshmallow, mugwort, chives, and so many more…they are green when all around is still dead. They are the first to return.
Inspired, I begin. Slowly, slowly, I’ve been sticking to my plan. It feels so strange not to have a greenhouse overflowing with seedling trays, but it also feels very purposeful. Every seed I put in the soil has intention behind it. Every sprout is a celebration, because there are far less of them to keep track of. I am planting based on the weather, not my impatience. I am letting the garden tell me what’s next.
No garden—and no garden year—is ever going to be perfect. But if nothing else, I long to learn patience, this year. Patience with myself and my anxieties. Patience with what grows, for it cannot be rushed.
The garden is God’s portrait of holy patience, and every time she returns, may we remember that the wait was worth it.
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"Every seed I put in the soil has intention behind it. Every sprout is a celebration"
And now you know--in some distant, mysterious way--how God feels about people. Beautiful reflection.
And don't forget - where other creation stories involve battles, dismemberments, and ghastly atrocities, our God planted a garden, and placed Adam and Eve in it to tend it.