I enjoy gardening–especially when the weather is cooler. Usually I don’t have too much difficulty getting a reasonable crop from my vegetable garden. This year, however, was different:
- I’ve had a great supply all year of chard.
- I can’t keep up with the peppers and okra.
- Tomatoes, not so good this year. Lack of water, perhaps?
- Fig tree–barren. It gets one more year and then I’ll chop it down!
- Lemon tree–was doing great until the grandkids picked about 20 baby lemons for a game they were playing.
- Peaches–squirrels got them over a weekend when I was away 🙁
- Squash of all kinds–zero!
- Melons canteloupe and water melons–two!
- Eggplants–one!
These last three vegetables are a little different. They all have distinguishable male and female flowers, and it takes cross-pollination of a female flower to produce fruit. Usually, if I’m having a poor harvest, I’ll cross pollinate the flowers with a brush.
This year, however, that was not possible.
None of my plants had any female flowers! So no harvest.
Makes you think.
8 replies on “Lessons from my vegetable garden”
Simple yet profound. And on more levels than one!!!
Thank you!
HMMMM.. .
“God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.” –Martin Luther
What I know of the divine sciences and Holy Scriptures, I learned in woods and fields. I have no other masters than the beeches and the oaks. – Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
There is a theology to gardening that few of us consider, but to understand this theology means relinquishing much control – our arsenal of books, techniques, tools, chemicals, fertilizers, fancy hybrids, and expectations. Yet, that is exactly what we must do if we are to fully embrace a more spiritual form of gardening. As a part of Nature we must learn to enter our garden as if it were truly sacred, we must learn to enter with humility. – Christopher and Tricia McDowell, The Sanctuary Garden
–Anne Wilson Schaef (Cherokee), Author-Native Wisdom for White Minds
From rear cover:
What is a white mind? White minds are trapped in a closed system of thinking that sees life in
black and white, either/or terms; they are hierarchical and mechanistic; they see nature as a force to be tamed and people as objects to be controlled with no regard for the future.
Great and thought-provoking quotes, as always, Carol.
….also makes one think as I watched a bee gathering pollen….what if it all happened ‘by accident’? How long did it take ‘accident’ to get a bee right? What happened to the pollination of flowers, trees, plants, etc. in the meantime? Did they all have to wait until the bees could do their job??? Our wonderful Triune God created all in virtually an instant – all integrated, and interdependent – plants, animals, insects…..including male and female……we are all part of the One……fearfully and wonderfully made……not one thing in creation was out of place or ‘lower’ than another…..the ‘least’ is a vital part of and a necessity for the ‘greatest’ …..even soil and your plants cannot survive without the microbes, bacterias, fungi, insects……and water and air……and the Word of God which spoke it all into existence. (always wondered why ‘evolutionist’ choose to ‘say’ that it was only in the area of animal evolution that chance was at work – what about the plant kingdom, the microbes etc. and the physical basis of everything – molecules – did a carbon atom or a water molecule only come about by ‘accident’? did they ‘evolve’ over time, did the physical laws eg gravity, change over time to what we have now???? Hardly think so. What would have happened to the world with a huge mix of ‘accidental mistakes’?????) Praise the Lord for his far too wonderful Creation!
Amen!
Let the women of God show and tell what God has done! The body of Christ in the 21st Century needs every member to boldly and courageously function in her/his giftings.
Yes, Steve! I totally agree!