I do not have a green thumb. Growing up, we had a small garden built in our backyard. We grew tomatoes, beans and broccoli. I’m sure there was more but I was little. All I knew was that in order to eat broccoli, you needed cheese sauce, and I was very concerned as to where that cheese sauce would be planted. =) The camp garden was ginormous. We grew several varieties of potatoes and beans, peppers, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, squash, cauliflower, brocccoli, zucchini, and pumpkins. I got to help with the caretaking of the plot, and it was wondrous! To think – growing food!
Like I said, growing things was not my specialty. I was in a state of shock the whole season that I could help food to come from seeds. The garden was there to teach campers that food doesn’t just pop into the grocery – that it comes from God, and we need to take care of and be grateful for His creation. It totally taught me that too.
My season in the garden taught me a few other things:
- Patience. With people and plants and myself.
- Onions that you pluck are sweeter.
- Kids think purple potatoes are the bomb, ’cause they are.
- Harvesting is a wildly fulfilling experience.
- Hoeing and shoveling and mulching is really, really good therapy.
- Running outside in the rain to protect the baby tomatoes is not weird.
- Neither is taking pictures of the plants and posting them on Facebook for the other gardener while she’s out of town. =)
- Eating squash casserole weekly doesn’t get old when the squash is fresh.
- Veggies really do taste better when you’ve planted them and watered them and watched them grow.
- Veggies take time.
- Veggies take effort.
- Veggies take nurturing, love, weeding, decisiveness, patience, care, and cultivating.
- Veggies don’t just happen (except for squash. They seem to multiply all on their own.)
Good things don’t just happen either. And if they do, we bow our heads in thanks.
I SO love that you are reading this book – I’m actually in the middle of it right now. I read it over breakfast and it’s such a lovely way to begin the day and reflect on how and why we eat during the first meal of the day.
While I’m able to tend to some herbs on our deck, I can’t WAIT until we have a full-yard someday (we live in a townhouse right now) where I can plant raised beds and can what we grow.
It’s a good read! Sure is making me think about what I put in my mouth. I wish we had yard space to grow things, but we’re in a townhome too. I tried to grow a few things in pots last summer, but my non-green thumb won out =)
Sounds like such a special and peaceful time and place! I imagine the garden was a big part of that.