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5.13.2013

our garden: cultivation

Long before we were the M6, when we were just a couple, Ian and I decided to do a little gardening in our backyard.  Our efforts at the old house weren't huge, but we did manage to provide ourselves with all the tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans and snap peas we (and several of our neighbors) could eat for the summer.  


We had talked about having a garden again since we moved from our previous city.  But life...well, it happened...and we just never got around to it.  It simply wasn't high enough on our priority list.

Then we added the wee one to the family and a garden came back on our radar.  You could say growing some of our own food became more of a pressing need.  After all, nearly 70% of our grocery budget goes to produce, much of that thanks to a little guy with an amazing appetite for fruit and raw vegetables.

This spring we decided to go for it.  

I wish I had recorded the excitement the kids expressed the Saturday morning we announced our day's goal of creating a garden space in the back yard.  They were thrilled...but I have to suspect they had a different picture in mind for creating a garden.  We spent about four hours in the yard that day, without one seed involved ~ for that was the day we prepared the ground.

cul*ti*vate
to losen or break up the soil about (growing plants)

First item of business in setting up our garden made the kids question our methods.  They couldn't believe that we were going to dig up an area of perfectly good grass (with very few weeds and no dirt spots showing).

You see, we were blessed with a large back yard, providing plenty of space for the kids and our dog to run and play.  In the very center of that yard stands a huge pecan tree that gives shade in the summer.  But because of the shade canopy, there are only a few places in the yard that grass grows well...and the garden area was one of those spaces.

That day we attacked the sunniest corner of the lovely yard, tearing up a sizable area that grass actually grows.  The action seemed counterintuitive to the kids, so we found ourselves explaining that yes, while we were ripping the grass out of the ground, we were making way for a new, even more desirable, type of growth.
digging up the grass
And in that explanation, I found myself pondering some of the painful times in life.  Some of the times when I felt that life was beating me down.  Times that now, with time and distance, I can clearly see as cultivation.  I believe there were many times that I was being "broken up" in preparation for better things to come.

turning up soil
[For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.] ~ Psalm 66:10-12 (NIV)



And our yard is much the same.  We may have broken up some of our only good grass and left the area barren.  But we were getting the ground ready for new things to come...




3 comments:

likeschocolate said...

I would love to have a garden, but the deer would eat it! Two summers ago, I planted a cantaloupe, but the turtles from the creek ate it before I could pick it! Boo!

Glenda said...

Very true analogy, and one that will help us get through those times of "cultivation"!

Nancy said...

What a great analogy!