Life Lessons Learned in my Garden

 

Don’t wait for perfect conditions.        One house that Phil and I rented had no room for a garden, but I wanted to grow some vegetables. I had time and energy to tend a garden, but no open space. We did have a big concrete patio that was in full sun most of the day. So I bought a couple of big plastic baby pools, drilled holes in the bottom, and set them on wood slats to provide air space and drainage. My birthday is in the early spring. We had a bunch of friends over and I asked for bags of potting soil as my birthday gift. Once they were filled with dirt, my baby pools were perfect for planting. I built a climbing triangle in the center of one for green beans and grew zucchini plants around it. The other pool was full of tomato and cucumber plants. My in-laws gave me a redwood planter with herbs to plant, and my patio garden was complete. The plants growing on all that concrete made a difference in the temperature and feel of our yard and house too. Conditions are often less than perfect. But if we take that as the final word on what is possible, we will often miss out. With a little creativity and ingenuity, a solution can be found!

 

Weeding is necessary!          It is no fun to pull out the weeds that invariably grow together with the vegetables or flowers you plant. Even in the lawn, some weeds grow. Sometimes I am tempted to ignore them. I’ve learned this is not a good idea. If they are left alone, the weeds will eventually take over. They grow rapidly, often faster than the plant you are cultivating. Because they grow quickly, the weeds will take the water and nutrients from the soil, thus robbing it from your purposeful plant. If the leaves get bigger or taller than what you are growing, they will rob the sunlight as well. Life is like this too. There are unhelpful patterns, habits, and beliefs that can “grow up” alongside good ones. If you aren’t diligent about self-awareness and dealing with the mindsets that are not serving you, they will eventually choke out the good things you are working on. Like sun and water, there is a limited supply of time and energy in life and you don’t want to waste it.

 

Anticipate the Harvest!         There’s a lot of joy to be gained in growing something yourself instead of buying it. Planting seeds and watching the little sprouts peek up out of the soil is fun for kids and adults alike. When you plant a seed, you plant it with the expectation for what that plant will produce. I love fresh green beans, so those are one of my favorite things to plant! Those first days of seeing the seedling push its way up through the soil are a victory. Watching the plant grow, bloom, and then form tiny little pods is fun. The purpose is the harvest, but there is great joy and anticipation in the process. Life is like that too. Much of what we do involves process and time. Most things require effort, time, patience, and energy. The way to stay encouraged while you wait is to observe, to notice and celebrate progress, and to remember the purpose of the process.

 

Pruning is Key         Pruning is one of my least favorite aspects of gardening. Cutting off parts of a thriving plant or tree is hard. I’ve learned how important it is to both keep a plant healthy and maximize production. There is a lot to learn about the proper way to prune various plants. I learned a critical lesson about the timing of pruning a couple of years ago. I grew up loving lilac flowers. My parents had a couple of lilac bushes on their property while I was growing up. I always wanted one but wanted to wait until we owned our own house because I didn’t want to have to leave it behind when we moved or try to dig it up and transplant it. My husband gave me my first lilac bush as a gift when we closed escrow on our house and another for a special occasion the following year. I cared for them the best I knew how but had only a few blooms each year. I started wondering what I was doing wrong. I fertilized, pruned, and changed the amount of water….nothing seemed to help. I began to research and learned that I was causing the problem! Lilacs bloom on “old wood” and the best time to prune is right after their blooming season. I realized that because I was pruning at the wrong time of year, I was cutting off the blooms for the following spring! I changed when and how I pruned and now I enjoy a lot of blooms! You can’t know what you don’t know! There are at least two lessons for life in this example. First, there are times when we overcommit ourselves, and our productivity decreases because we are trying to do too much. Overcommitting can result in not doing anything with excellence. In times like this, pruning is necessary!  A second, equally important lesson is that it helps to keep learning and discovering. Never think that you know it all, continue to learn from others and apply what you are learning.

 

Every Step is Important       In one of the houses we rented, we decided to plant a lawn. The area had been unused and was a hard-packed and dry weed bed. We did the work of getting rid of the weeds, tilling the soil, and leveling it. We added organic material and natural fertilizer to the existing soil to increase the quality. We leveled the area and added topsoil. We made a watering plan and finally, we planted the grass seeds. I was surprised by how long and involved the preparation was. We spent many more hours and a lot more physical work on preparing the ground than we spent planting the lawn. Every one of those steps was important. Each one contributed to the outcome and success of our lawn. Once it was planted, we had to water it carefully and often so that the seeds stayed in place and didn’t dry out and die. Starting a lawn from seed was a lot of work and time. It was a multi-step process, but the result was more than worth it. Our little lawn was beautiful and we knew it would last because we had planned and done each step with care. When we moved from that house, it was the lawn that I was sad to leave. I was proud of it! We had worked on it as a family and watched it grow. Life is like that too, isn’t it?! Each season, age and stage is important and unique. It is a process that changes and builds on what has come before. And in plants and life, we become attached and proud of what we invest in.