Tis the Growing Season

Everywhere I look now, I see the green of spring, pretty petalled flowers and their stems, leaves unfolding on trees, and little shoots coming up in the garden. And bigger plants that were started as seedlings. And while refreshing the flower beds this spring, sharing some of the overgrowth with fellow gardeners. Soon the weeds will come too, unfortunately.

Our own garden beds

We’ve got an extra bed for plants this year, besides our own two raised ones in our backyard. A church not far from ours has expanded their community garden and I thought I’d like to try it out this year. That bed is planted too, just last week, so the seeds are doing their thing, germinating underground, I hope, and the tiny onion sets are beginning to poke a stem through the soil. It’s an experiment this year, having an extra garden elsewhere. My granddaughters helped to plant at our home, and I look forward to showing the two older ones the other bed when they come next week. It will take some extra work and time going there and back, but it’s an interesting experiment thus far.

Community garden bed behind this colourful one

The promise of growth happens in spring in creation and it can also happen in our lives when we dare to explore something new. I haven’t always been a writer, for publication, but I’ve always been a reader. My first career as a preschool teacher taught me things that I didn’t know that helped me when my children were young preschoolers. It’s still an age I enjoy, even if my energy is not all it used to be. Each new thing I’ve tried—retail, election work, learning to play musical instruments, storytelling, teaching, writing and editing—have brought with them lessons I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. New connections were forged and publication credits encouraging, but also humbling.

The down sides have been like the weeds, cropping up here and there, making me doubt myself and my abilities from time to time. I ask myself, Was I meant to do this? But it was always something I wanted to try, like learning to play guitar more than a year ago, and more recently, deciding to try playing bells in a bell choir. The learning was still sometimes quite hard and required greater concentration.

Storytelling at the Button Factory

I’m still learning and hope I always can continue to learn. It keeps life interesting. It’s not always something brand new, but a different area of something that already holds my interest, like natural gardening and ways to work with nature instead of against it. 

And so the weeds are there all the same, in the garden and in our lives. I just need to learn when to pull them out and examine the situation from a different perspective before jumping back in again.

Garden, if you wish, but learn to recognize the weeds.

Good Soil—Carolyn R. Wilker

At the library last evening I picked up a book titled 1001 Tips for Canadian Gardeners. My own garden has taken years to get where it is now, and I’m still learning. Two of our three daughters bought new homes in the last year. This year they’re still figuring out what to do with the land around their homes.

The soil at both places seems to be heavier, unlike the sandy soil we have. There is a need to emend the soil both places—to lighten and feed it.

Our youngest daughter started to work with her garden area and flower beds last year, pulling out overgrown plants and taming weeds. In some areas, it must feel like a losing battle, but she’s added fresh soil to the garden area and likely compost too, and so this year it was ready for a small vegetable garden that is indeed growing well.

The yard at the home of my eldest daughter once was quite a show place, according to photos the owner’s family left behind. Yet, the place had been untended for years, and there was much work to do inside and out. Last summer, with a young child, and a baby coming, the indoor renovations took precedence, but this spring and summer, the outdoors has received attention too. The front bed with overgrown shrubs and hundreds of grape hyacinths has been cleared for now. The backyard needed attention, too. Both friends and family helped remove the overgrowth and trim mature trees that provided good shade.

The book I borrowed addresses many features of taking care of the land and gardens, in planning, considering environmental factors, along with garden design and soil modification. Both yards will become more manageable in time. For now, one with a baby wanted to grow food, and the other, with a small child and a baby, had to consider safety and put up fencing to keep a two-year-old safe.

 In the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13), the sower went out to plant. Some seed fell on rocky ground and couldn’t take hold and grow. Other seeds fell on the path and the birds ate the seeds. (They need to eat too.) Seeds that fell among thorns were overtaken and never had a chance to grow. Then the seed that fell on good soil did very well and produced a good crop.

Jesus interpreted the parable for his disciples. People of the time would understand those lessons, too, for they were keepers of the land as we are today.

In the same way, good seed planted in our minds help us to stay closer to God. Weeds were the evil, Jesus said, that choked out the good crop, making plants wither and die. He wanted his people to understand how to bear fruit, not just to grow it.

The book of gardening tips will be just as helpful to the serious stewards of the land as the Bible is to our understanding of God and the kingdom. And I’m sure God, the Creator of beauty, would appreciate a nicely kept yard and garden too.

Author's vegetable garden

Author's flower gardens

Carolyn R. Wilker is an editor and author. Learn more about her at www.carolynwilker.ca

now available from the author and Angel Hope Publishing

Past Easter: New Growth--Carolyn R. Wilker

Easter Sunday is past yet we’re still in the Easter season in our church, a time we consider growth and renewal. It’s fitting that Easter occurs in springtime. At least that’s my take on it, though it may not match in other parts of the globe, with climate and different seasons.

I love watching the garden come to life, with leaves opening, buds on trees and then the early flowers appearing. First the crocuses and later the tulips and daffodils. Cheery yellow daffodils and pink tulips are among my favourites. After the white chill of winter, I’m ready for colour in my garden again. And ready for the season of gardening all over again.

This past week I took some new photos of my flowerbeds and posted several on my Facebook page. Friends say, “Already?” or “Is that this year already?” and I can reply, “Yes, it is.”

Mind you, there are weeds to contend with in spring, shrubs to be cut back and some clean-up to do, but it’s all part of the package of gardening. The lawn got its first haircut, and I’ve pulled some weeds from places. My husband gave the shrubs a seasonal trim; quite a trim, I might add. Lots of room for growth there.

After rooting out the plants that are overgrown or done and replacing them with new ones, I can sit back and enjoy the refreshed garden and watch it grow further. Perennials are the easiest to grow and tend, when the plant is matched to soil and conditions. They flourish in the right place, just as we do.

Making some changes for this year, I’ll dig out a few plants where ants have built a new hill. Those busy little insects have transplanted their home across the sidewalk after we rousted out the old one last year. We have sandy soil, and ants like sand. We may not rid the garden of ants entirely and that’s okay, as long as they don’t take over. My garden will never be perfect lines and precision, only pleasing to the eye and colourful. After all, it is nature which is sometimes a little wild around the edges, just like its caretaker.

I look forward to planting the vegetable garden later this month, hopefully with the help of our two oldest granddaughters who like to dig the holes and water. We’ll have a conversation about the plants we want to grow. They’ll come by to help plant the garden and then, from time to time, for a visit and help to tend the garden—mostly with the watering can. Then we wait and watch until it’s time to harvest whatever we’ve grown.

Think of Jesus’ resurrection and the opportunity of grace that we may start fresh each day in our Christian walk. Like spring and the promise of new growth, like the routing out of things that don’t serve our purpose anymore. Maybe not a brand new purpose, since we may have already believed and hoped in the risen Christ, but a renewal of sorts, like the earth giving forth new life.

www.carolynwilker.ca

photos by C. Wilker

Tried and True or What’s New—Carolyn R. Wilker

In my household, tried and true is a good thing for many reasons. Whatever works, we keep on with it, whether it’s a particular way of planting or making a pot of soup. Whether it’s a way of building something or a system for filing important papers. Sometimes, though, it’s good to break out of a rut, if one could call it that, and try something new.

The philosopher in Ecclesiastes declares that generations come and go, that the sun rises and sets and confirms that “There is nothing new under the sun.” (v. 1:9c, NIV) While those things regarding creation remain the same, if the philosopher were here, I might argue that there are new things under the sun. Maybe not the way the water flows to the sea or the return of seasons, or the wind blowing as it does. It’s good to have some things that remain consistent. But there are new ways of doing many things.

            In our time, we have telecommunications systems that the philosopher could never have dreamed of. We have Go Bus, Go Train, printing presses that are much more efficient than the first presses invented. Our way of sharing ideas is different, with internet and Smart Phones and the iPad, for example. Perhaps the ideas are limited, but the way of expressing them can be quite varied.

Several years ago, I got tired of my garden not producing in our sandy soil, no matter what I did or how hard I worked and watered it. Some plants did alright and others failed. 

A friend shared an idea on her Facebook page that she found on some other social media sharing place. A raised bed, in which we could add better soil, would be less stress on the back leaning down to plant, and we could put netting over to keep the small animals out so the plants get a chance to grow. I thought the idea was brilliant and I was able to get my husband—who likes tried and true the best—on board. That was March. In May, when it was time to get things planted, he completed the raised beds and we put them in place and filled them with new and better soil, with a lot of help from family members and a neighbour. Thus we began a new way of gardening.

Since then I’ve learned about Square Foot Gardening, an idea that the raised bed was built on. There were learning curves with this kind of gardening, for example how close could I plant the seeds or seedlings so they have room to grow and aren’t crowded. It’s been a successful venture even if my tomato plants grew through the netting. And it’s been fun, too, for my grandchildren to help me plant and water.

 And here’s where I’m glad for what doesn’t change, that the rain falls from the sky to water the plants, the water we collect from the downspouts into our rain barrel that’s the best kind of water for the plants—warm and soft.  Also I'm grateful that the seeds grow as they are intended to, and the sun shines, and that God, the creator, is in charge of all that. We just have to be good stewards and take care of what we have, using it wisely.

 

Carolyn Wilker is a writer and editor from southwestern Ontario, Canada