…a large quantity and variety of something good

My gardens are doing great! Well, mostly that is, considering my domain is on top of a granite hillside and the 24 hour temperature can fluctuate almost 40 degrees AND I don’t have a greenhouse. It’s pretty remarkable that I can garden at all.

So what if the spinach is leggy or if so far the squash blossoms haven’t decided what to do. So what if the eggplants are stunted and the red cabbage looks like lacework. The pole beans are curling around the bamboo supports and setting blooms; beets are finally thriving and there’s more lettuce than we can eat. This year my two cherry tomatoes are taller than I am with hundreds of blooms trying to become sweet 100 tomatoes. I love dashing out the door to harvest something for the table. Gardens are simply miraculous.

If I compare results with friends whose thumbs are greener than mine, who have greenhouses or who generally sprout and produce everything effortlessly, I’d be terribly discouraged. The joy of gardening for me isn’t having bushels full of home grown produce for Dan and me. Frankly, it would be cheaper, easier and less time consuming to buy from local farmers’ markets for what we need. At night, I wouldn’t be groaning with a painful back ache from too much bending over into the dirt.

I am realizing that the harvest from my gardening is quite different. When I imagine a beautiful cornucopia overflowing its bounty, I see:

The blessing of being outside in one of the most beautiful places on the planet where I breathe in clean, fresh air all day, where the sun is bright as gold, where fresh water is available at the turn of a faucet and where the gardens and forest are but hairsbreadth apart.
The exercise I get while gardening which actually keeps me limber and moving about.
The creative freedom to design, plant, replant, uproot as the season needs.
An unshakeable sense of belonging, place and history. All of my family, especially on my mother’s side, were natural gardeners. My grandfathers grew wine grapes, my mother’s hand could grow anything and I plant mountain tomatoes. My children have the same gifting. It is our heritage. In my gardens I am connected to my ancestors and descendants.
Responsibility to nurture what God’s uniquely given me to tend.
God’s presence with me. It is His garden after all. The prayers I pray here are different than the ones I pray in my prayer closet. Outside, I am a child going on a special outing with her Father.
Awareness of miracles. How can one see a seed sprouting in dirt becoming something to eat and not be awestruck? How can one see the patterns in leaves and intricate symmetry of every humble weed head and not worship the God of such perfect designs?
Perfect freedom because the Lord God has set me loose to wander from here to there, like a butterfly sipping nectar from different flowers.
Gratitude for this fruitful season of my life.

This is my “horn of plenty”: God’s abundance pouring out over my life, blessing upon blessing.