How Does Your Garden Grow?

July 17, 2006

I don't know anything about mustard seeds except the ones I have in my cupboard, which I don't think I've used since I made pickles about 10 years ago. (Do mustard seeds expire?) I've never had a reputation as a great cultivator of plants and living things. (Although Sarah is still going strong...I'm happy about that) I had a terrible reputation when I first moved into my own apartment, of killing houseplants. I just couldn't keep them alive. My college roommate, Marlene, got married and I was a bridesmaid. She gave the wedding party a houseplant each and said it represented her marriage. She wanted us to nourish the plants and be a part of nourishing her marriage through prayer. I told her if her marriage was the houseplant in my care, her marriage was doomed. The marriage is still going strong, the plant died a long time ago. Not long after the wedding, as I recall.
As a symbol of putting down roots, Larry and I decided to put in a garden for the first time in 14 years. Neither of us know a whole lot about gardening, despite the fact that I grew up in the Garden State (I'm still clueless as to how NJ got that nickname...). My church member, George-- who has defied death many times through prayers and just plain stubbornness-- tilled the area for us with his fancy little tilling machine. However, good ol' George assured us that nothing was likely to grow there on the "south side" of the house. (Nebraskans have a thing for identifying directions at all times. What IS that?) Well, we planted tomato plants, green beans, onions, cucumbers, lima beans, and yellow squash. Larry said that not all of it will come up, so we better plant extra yellow squash. I said just one packet of seeds. He said two. We planted two. After all, according to George, nothing was likely to grow on the "south side" of the house.
Jesus was really impressed with mustard seeds; how tiny they are and how they flourish into a pretty impressive plant. I, however, am impressed with yellow squash seeds. The garden... has flourished. George says our tomato plants look better than his, and he said it with a little indignation. But the squash?? Yikes. Every bit of it came up. I think birds could even make their nests in those squash plants and find shelter for their young. We have eaten squash every day for at least three weeks now. We've cut it up and frozen pounds of it, given away piles of it, and still it keeps growing. It's very important, we learned, to pick squash on time, lest you get fairly good sized yellow baseball bats, which are a little more difficult to cook. Sometimes I just stand at my kitchen window and look out at the garden... and giggle. I helped DO that! It is a small garden of prosperity. Abundant food. More than one little family can eat. By the time we get through the stuff in the freezer, I imagine we would have eaten yellow squash every possible way there is to fix it! People ask us what we did! I say, "we put the seeds in the ground!"
Meanwhile, the cornfields are full of corn that goes over my head. Everywhere we drive, there are acres and acres of corn, waving in the breeze. In Kearney, various farmers are selling sweet corn out of the back of pick-up trucks, along with watermelons, cucumbers, and I suspect: squash. Everywhere you look in rural Nebraska, the earth is producing of itself. Farmers are working hard out there in the 100 degree heat, as they have been for a long time, making things grow and beginning to gather the earlier harvests. We're eating fresh green beans, tomatoes and cucumbers and SQUASH that we had a hand in growing. Larry's ready to pull the squash plants, but I won't let him just yet. The plants are so tall and green and wave in the breeze-- when there is one. They make me look good; like I knew what I was doing. But all I did was put the seeds in the ground and put some water on it. The earth did the rest. I love Nebraska for a lot of reasons, but I love living where people are so close to the earth. Where the earth is a part of their everyday lives, and for so many, the way they make a living by the sweat of their brow. It's not an easy life, and it's certainly not a way to get rich, but the farmers I know do it not just because their parents did it, but because it's in their blood. It's who they ARE. They can't NOT do it. And people who live close to the earth tend to be a lot more real. They tend to have a respectable awe for life and death and the power of the weather. Here you see a storm building long before it ever gets to where you are. Or you can see where someone ELSE is having a storm that never comes your way. Lightening provides a pretty remarkable light show, right in our own front yard (which faces EAST, by the way). We ate the first tomato out of our garden tonight. Larry, Sarah Gene and I cut it in three pieces and celebrated the unique lusciousness of that first harvested tomato from our own garden. All three of us have worked in that garden; planting, weeding, watering, picking. No tomato could be more delicous.
I can't relate to what Jesus said about mustard seeds, because I've never planted one, and I'm not sure the ones in my spice rack would do anything. But I'm impressed with yellow squash seeds. A little tiny seed, with all that life potential in it, just waiting to be planted, watered, and given a home in the rich brown earth, to just let go and do what God intended it to do. Another thing I didn't know was that before a yellow squash becomes a squash, it is a big, bright yellow flower. The FLOWER turns into a vegetable that can be fried, steamed, put into casseroles, and made into patties. How cool is that?
I know that my it's not my gardening skills that is producing this bumper crop of vegetables. But it is awesome to participate in creation so directly! It is wonderful to plant a seed and see what God will do! So I try to apply that to everything else in my life. I'm just here to plant seeds, and watch God do God's thing. I can't do a whole lot on my own, I just use what God gives me and wait to see what happens! Pretty amazing when you stop and pay attention. And the harvest is delicious!!