Lessons From a Garden

It’s the middle of October and the leaves have started to fall. The light of day has gotten shorter, and the air has a cool breeze to it. Summer has passed. Winter is coming. As I pick off the last bunch of cucumbers and tomatoes, I thank the ground beneath my feet and the sky above my head for the harvest that my garden brought this year. I think back to the journey that has passed and realize all the lessons that were taught. This was my first little garden. A real garden. Fruits and vegetables right out of the ground. Something that was on my home desires list for a while now. And luckily, the guy I’ve been dating had a perfect box of dirt, for me to turn into magic. There was always something admirable to me about growing my own food. To be able to place the freshest produce right on to my kitchen table. To reach another level of self-sustainability. My mother had a green thumb, so this value was instilled in me from a young age. I learned so much about the plants I grew. How much sun and water each plant needed, what temperatures were optimal for fruit growth, what nutrients were needed in the soil. What I didn’t expect to witness though, was the physical unraveling of life’s most wonderful lessons.

A Rich Soil, A Rich Life

The first key to a successful garden, is making sure you start with a rich soil. If you want a plant to have the best chance of a strong growth, you need to ensure its soil has everything it needs to achieve that. Lucky for me, my boyfriend grew some plants the years prior in the same box of dirt and has been using it as his kitchen compost ever since. After a dozen more bags of gardening soil from the store, some mixture of fish fertilizer and a knees-to-ground prayer, our raised beds were prepared for our transplants.

The process of what happens above the ground is a direct correlation of what is happening underneath. The case is the same in our own lives. Our soil is our foundation. If you don’t have a strong, healthy foundation in your life, you might struggle to see the maturity of your pursuits. Periodically we must ask ourselves, what are we mixing into our soil? Is it beneficial to the growth of the seeds we are planting? Are we missing some key nutrients and how do we find them? I believe a healthy life soil needs hearty nutrients like gratitude, love, kindness, courage, and integrity. For me, I’ve found that the more I turn to God to build up the soil of my foundation, the more I am able to witness the growth and maturity of the fruits in my life.

You Will Reap What You Sow

For the longest time that box of dirt was full of just plants. Green stems and green leaves and occasionally some pretty flowers. For the first half of the growing season, I had to simply trust the process. At times, due to temperature changes or the nitrogen levels in the soil, some of the flowers on the plants would shrivel up and die, never getting to the fruit stage. But even so, every weekend I would show up to that backyard to prune the tomatoes, build support systems for the eggplants, water down the soil, and clean up any dead leaves. I would spend the necessary time with this living project. And the results of my labor were literal fruits. Fresh, delicious fruit. We turned eggplants into Eggplant Parmesan, cucumbers into pickles, zucchini into zoodles, jalapenos into salsa, lettuce into salads and strawberries into flavored water.

To me, the good fruit in our lives translates to blessings. That’s why you can tell what seeds someone sows into their lives by the types of fruits they produce. What we see externally is a result of what we input internally. When you see that someone is surrounded by loving friends and family, it’s probably because they’ve planted the seed of love. They themselves are full of love and give it freely. You are what you reap. If you don’t see the fruits you’d like to see in your life, take a look at what seeds you have planted. You might have planted the opposite. The lack of fruit of stability, is a sign of planted instability. You find these seeds hidden in your habits and choices. The lack of love is a sign of seeded hatred. You find these seeds hidden in your thoughts and choice of words. It’s also necessary to be honest about the time you actually spend on growing those seeds. It might not be the seeds themselves; it might be the amount of effort and resources you’re dedicating to what you’re attempting to grow. The process is not as simple as dropping them into the soil and walking away. You must also water the soil, ensure enough sunlight, and tend to it constantly. 

Patience Rewards

Here’s a short story about our cucumber plant. My boyfriend and I had attempted to grow cucumbers the year prior, before we even met, and we both had zero luck at the attempt. But for our garden together, we decided to give it another try. For the first month and a half, the cucumber plant was so weak I had to clip the stems to two sticks for it to stand up straight. As we surveyed all our plants, we thought “if anything happens with this cucumber plant, it will be the biggest comeback we’ve ever seen”. At this point, we had already harvested our broccoli head, our tomatoes started flowering, tiny jalapenos and strawberries were poking out of the flowers, and the carrot tops were pushing through the dirt. So, much to our surprise, three weeks later, tiny cucumbers began to show. The rest was history. We must have harvested over 60 cucumbers by the end of our growing season from that one plant. And my favorite part? We turned them into pickles. Salty, garlicky, crunchy dill pickles to store over the winter and to give away to friends. The moral of the story? Patience rewards.

Different plants, like different people, all have different growing seasons. Comparison does not only steal joy; it also steals the ability to be patient with yourself. Some people need more time than others in each of their stages. It does not mean they won’t succeed. And everyone’s fruit is different. It’s unfair to compare the timeline of a tiny strawberry to the timeline of a large cucumber. As long as that plant (or you) is still alive, you still have a chance to change the outcome around. Had I pulled that cucumber plant out of the ground to replace it with something else, I wouldn’t have learned how to make my favorite snack or been able to share it with friends.

The experience I had with my garden is an experience I believe everyone should have. It’s peaceful. It’s spiritual. It’s empowering. It’s so many great things. There’s a primal satisfaction that comes out of producing your own food. Fresh, healthy, organic food. From your garden to your table. But the best part out of this whole process, was being able to share this experience as well as its blessings. If there’s anything to take away from this journey of life, is that the best part of growing, is being able to give.