I love not gardening. I just can’t get my head around what the attraction is to all that work. Many of my friends are excited about planting their garden this spring, but I’m always surprised by their enthusiasm. I prefer to gather my harvest from those hay wagons with the red striped canopies parked at each end of town.
I gotta admit, I can’t tell the difference between an Ohio River tomato and a Rushcreek-grown tomato. Apparently Ohio River Tomatoes speak with a southern drawl, because they look and taste the same to me. But then, my inability to taste the difference may account for why I’m not interested in the work it takes to raise my own tomatoes.
I know exactly when my aversion to gardening took root. When I was a kid, we planted a truck patch each spring that covered an entire acre using only two simple tools: a cantankerous old David Bradley walk behind tractor and a primitive back-hoe. (A primitive back hoe is different than a motorized back hoe in that it involves only your back… and a hoe.)
Our hilltop farm on Lake Road was rocky and unforgiving. We engaged in combat against that ground. It was proud and gritty and fought you tooth and nail. It was soil with a soul. When it saw that ancient walk-behind tractor sputtering in its direction, it hunkered down and pulled its thorny hedge up around shoulders like a boxer trotting toward the ring, robed in thick, weedy sod and packing boulder-sized rocks in each fist. On warm spring nights as I lay in bed, I swear I could hear it rumble and hiss at me.
During the heat of the summer, the tilling and tending were left to us brothers. Dad was up and out before daybreak delivering milk, leaving Mom to get the four of us “up and at ‘em” before she left to assemble automotive starter switches at The RBM.
We didn’t garden because it drew us closer to nature or helped the environment. My family gardened because it provided a major portion of our annual food supply. Today, we might be considered poor but we didn’t think of ourselves that way; I don’t remember wanting for anything.
Dad teased that Mom canned and preserved everything but the rocks. In spite of its initial resistance, our garden produced abundantly. Mom was to canning what Michelangelo was to church ceilings—and she loved to share her art with neighbors and friends.
As a young man I learned that reaping what you sow doesn’t have to refer to bad things, it’s just as true if what we sow are good things. Paul said something similar to a group of new Christians in his letter to the church at Galatia. He wrote—
“Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!— harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit.
Galatians 6:7-9, The Message
I hope you’ll determine to plant a garden this spring. Plant kindness and gentleness; cultivate goodness and throw in some compassion around the borders for color. God promises you a rich harvest!
Read Ron’s column, Simple Faith, each Saturday on the Faith Page (page 3) of the Lancaster Eagle Gazette, or visit www.lancastereaglegazette.com.