Love Letters From The Vine-

Weeding Flowers?

          Wet and soggy from monsoon rains, the garden gave way under my feet leaving muddy tracks as I harvested dry, purple bean pods.  Harvesting them was a bit more complicated than I imagined when asked to do the task as they needed to be at just the right stage of development before being delicately snipped from the vine.  As they mature, native dry beans progress from a waxy bright purple color to a mottled, brownish deep plum color with a crispy feel.  To harvest them, I had to carefully inspect each one, feeling for just the right texture and color, before delicately snipping it off the vine and putting it into my small brown paper bag.  My supervisor, Susan, is hoping use these dried beans to make a delicious and bountiful bean soup for the upcoming faculty potluck. Unspoken, but clearly understood, is that these beans are a statement of the investment in growing food for taste, nourishment, and sustainability.  The SSLUG garden is a demonstration garden and these beans are a demonstration of all the reasons this kind of garden exists.  In short, these beans are a big deal.

     After spending more time inspecting and harvesting the beans than I had anticipated, I had nearly filled a lunch size paper bag full of crispy, full pods.  I excitedly went to show them to Susan, expecting her face to show delight at her modest, but viable harvest of beans.  However, as I came upon her bending down in another part of the garden I found her with handfuls of nearly 6 foot blooming sunflower plants and blossoming pink sweet peas pulled out by the roots with a determined and almost fierce look on her face.  I quickly discerned that these bright yellow and pink flowers were headed for the compost/trash pile.  I'm sure my face looked puzzled to see her pulling out these  lovely sunflowers and sweet peas in full bloom.  She quickly answered the question I had yet to ask by emphatically saying, "There are way too many flowers in this section now!  We need this space to plant more food.  Time is short to grow more food.  We need food!"

     "Oh, yes, of course," I mumbled.  I offered to help her take the flowers away as I processed this strategy.  Food?  Yes, food.  Carrots, spinach, wheat--any kind of plant food--is designed to sustain, nourish, and give us life.  Without plants as food we would be hard pressed to stay alive.  We have been given miracles in every plant that serves to feed us with untold micronutrients that contribute to our health and longevity.  Growing these precious miracles in our own backyard to cultivate taste and nutrition, while making a minimal demand on the environment, is the original design of our unfathomable designer, God. Yes, we need food.

     As I took away the flowers and began to help her sow seeds of spinach, kale, and cilantro, I reflected on the parallel in my own life.  What beautiful, but fleeting flowers are decorating my life, but not growing anything that nourishes my soul?  An even greater question--what exactly would nourish and feed my soul?   What do I crave and truly need to be healthier emotionally, physically, and spiritually?  For starters, I know I need to pull out some sunflowers and plant seeds that would bring more genuine communion with both God and those I truly love and care about every single day.  Like most of us living in this culture, I am overfed and undernourished on so many levels.  My life is cluttered with decorative, but fleeting things that never really fill my deepest needs.  Pretty things that don't really provide any real connection are taking up too much space.  My soul is hungry for some real nourishing food.  I need to intentionally make growing food--both literally and figuratively-- more important than growing flowers, as lovely as flowers are.  Yes, sometimes we have to weed the flowers and make room to grow some food.

 

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.