Wednesday, August 22, 2012


Love Letters From The Vine --
Weeding Out The Garden  

    Pulling out tiny unwanted wheat shoots has been one of my jobs recently.  As a volunteer at the NAU SSLUG (Students for Sustainable Living and Urban Gardening) plot I am a worker bee who  comes to log hours toward my Master Gardener certificate and learn more about gardening.  However, that usually means I do the grunt work, or assist with grunt work.  The past two weeks I’ve been doing the the infinity job of weeding.  Infinity because it never ends.  With each cycle of sun and rain we have a new crop of unwanted greens to pull out.  

    My teacher, director, boss, and friend at the garden is Susan.  She lovingly treats each flower, vegetable, and shrub like children in her care.  I love to watch her look at a listless looking plant and muse to herself and me, “this plant doesn’t look very happy today.  I wonder why?”  Then she  looks at it quizzically as she makes hypotheses about its forlorn appearance.  Maybe the soil wasn’t as good in this area, maybe it needs some food, or maybe it’s a hidden attack on the plant.  She may try to help the sick looking plant or she may decide to wait and see.  Much like a doctor she makes a plan and proceeds accordingly.  

    One of the things Susan did at the beginning of the summer to keep all her plants happier was to mulch them with straw.  Unlike hay, straw is supposed to be seed free.  Spread around the plants it helps them stay cool in the harsh Arizona sun and hold moisture in.  It’s also designed to keep the weeds out.  You see, weeds rob the plants of their water, nutrients, and life.  They may look lovely--as the little wheat shoots I’ve been pulling do--, but they are actually stealthy bandits of the nutrients needed to make the desired plants grow.  

    Unlike previous summers, when the straw did its job of helping, this summer it’s been sprouting wheat all throughout the rows and beds of corn, lettuce, beans, basil, amaranth and tomatoes. In fact, the entire vegetable and flower garden is littered with pesky wheat sprouts about 6 inches long peeking up through the straw.  To a wheat farmer they must be a happy sight, but here they are predators and thieves.  They have to be pulled out and the sooner the better.

    As I tediously pull them out, careful to get the entire root and seed, I think of the weeds that clutter my life.  The things that may look lovely, and actually be lovely, but in truth rob the plants I truly wish to cultivate in my life.  I’m aware that recently my weeds are often just thoughts that distract, punish, or limit me from the dreams and desires in my heart.  Fears of what others will think if I do or don’t do something expected. Fear of change. Fear of failure. Weeds that keep me stuck in comfortable paths that have long outlived their usefulness in my life. Moving on to new ambitions and dreams is risky business and require new ways of thinking if they are to grow and bloom. Like the unwanted wheat shoots the robbers in my life have to be carefully plucked out by the root as well.


   Kneeling in the garden also reminds me to intentionally plant and nurture things I want to grow--my relationships with others, my desire to make this world a better place, and my dream to show God’s love to the world in all its splendor.  To do this I need to be intentional about what I think, what I do with my time and resources, and what I use as mulch that might actually be creating weeds in my life.  I also need to intentionally and quickly pull out the robbers of my life--weeds masquerading as wheat -- that constantly come up to steal from my life.