Gardening Report September 29, 2019
Why haven’t there been any writing reports over the last couple of months?
Because I’ve been gardening and grandkid herding, that’s why.
Soon-ok and I rent a small plot (10 x 10) at the local park’s community garden.
We’re moderately successful as gardeners. We probably spend more than it would cost to buy the same amount of veggies at Whole Foods or Sprouts or Trader Joe’s, but on the other hand there’s a sense of satisfaction picking up a bag of frozen organic kale just can’t supply.
Besides, it’s fun and it gets us out of the house.
The lady who rented the plot adjoining our (#84 to our #83) unfortunately had to give it up due to medical problems.
No criticism of her, but it was in a pretty sorry state when she finally told the community garden they could let someone else rent it: Her sunflower had grown to huge light-blocking size, nutgrass weeds choked the rest, her fence was just unrolled chicken wire held in place by stakes.
Hey, she was sick. Cut her some slack.
When Soon-ok and I took it over, we tore out all the old plants and began working on the weeds.
Hoo-boy, did we ever work on the weeds.
We also replaced the original chicken wire fencing with removable panels similar to our side and most other plots in the community garden.
Not insurmountable work, but time consuming work.
Between making new fencing, weeding, and other chores (not to mention the aforementioned grandkids), I simply haven’t had time for much writing.
We’re probably not going to grow much in this second plot this year; we’re still battling nutgrass.
But our cool weather crops are already sprouting in our original plot, and with any luck we can put in a nice spring crop early next year.
. . .
While I haven’t had time for much writing, working in the garden has given me ample opportunity for thinking.
As we were tearing out the sunflowers and uprooting the other woman’s crops (which we donated to the local food pantry, BTW) and weeding and building new fence panels, I got to thinking about the sorry state of the Christian church in America.
There’s nothing wrong with the soil; it’s quite rich and good for growing, in fact.
But a lot of the stuff that was planted there suffers from neglect.
And lord knows a lot of pernicious weeds have taken it over.
The time is upon us to do some serious gardening in the church.
Uproot those old projects, planted with honest intention, to be sure, but now either growing wildly out of control and becoming a problem to others, or else slowly dying, their fruits unused by those who need ‘em the most.
Weed out that nutgrass. It’s selfish and doesn’t care about other plants and it will choke out every good thing if you give it half a chance -- and in the process spread and become a problem for other people’s plots and crops.
Tear down those old structures that aren’t working anymore, replace them with something better.
And above all, stop worrying about numerical or monetary success.
Just grow and nurture and share.
Don’t keep score.
© Buzz Dixon
