The Garden

My little veggie garden is growing! It is so exciting to check everyday and to see how my little plants have grown. The boys are thrilled when I allow them to come over the fence and inspect the growing veggies.

In addition to providing us with lots of veggies (we hope) our little garden is providing us with an apt picture of the Kingdom of God - a lesson we are always learning.

One thing that keeps hitting home is that in this business of garden growing and kingdom growing is that I do not have all the answers. I have made mistakes and sometimes I don't think I've done anything wrong but things are not turning out as I imagined - perhaps what I've imagined is incorrect or maybe something is interfering but whatever the cause it's ok. I am growing, as a gardener and a follower of Jesus. As long as I'm growing and moving forward thats good. I don't want to stay in the same place. Jesus didn't die so that I could stay the same - he died so that I could follow after him.

Anyway back to the garden. Unfortunately in one bed nothing grew. The seeds which had turned into little seedlings never grew any bigger. I couldn't understand why. And it made me sad. I tried and tried. I fertilized. Was there not enough water? Too much water? Not enough sun? Were the seeds bad? Was the soil bad? I don't know. I only know that after investing much time I finally pulled up the seedlings. Turned over the dirt, added some more fertilizer and planted new seed. Sometime the kingdom is like this. There is no change so it's time to invest elsewhere. Sad but true. In the picture below you can see my new seedlings (it's okra :), I hope they fare better than the last:

Behold my tomato plants! There are two. And they are big. Bigger than I expected. But they are producing!

My tomatoes have have not been without difficulties though. I have had caterpillars eating away at my leaves. The little enemies come to destroy my plants (I know this sounds harsh, and I know caterpillars turn into beautiful butterflies but we are not friends right now). They ate up 4 or 5 of my tomatoes before I realized I had invaders. I was swift though in my counter attack and picked all of them off and then sprayed my plants with a mixture of lavender and peppermint essential oils in water and so far no pests have returned. See what they did:

Happily I have picked two tomatoes like this and have great hopes for more:

And my cucumber plants are beautiful: