How Does Your Garden Grow?

It was Friday night when this whole thing got started. Actually, it was Thursday night. We were leaving the country for two weeks on Saturday, and felt that if my dream of having a garden was going to come true, we'd have to get things planted before we left. So, on Thursday night we built a garden box and bought seeds. On Friday night we filled it with soil and planted 10 different types of vegetables.
I have never planted a garden before. Ever. Once I tried to plant flowers in a flower bed, but they all died. So, all of this is incredibly new to me. And I am fascinated.
The seeds are tiny. Tiny. And it's hard to believe that they will turn into the picture on the envelope. I felt like it was an act of faith--putting these tiny things into the ground, covering them with soil, hoping something comes of it. I suddenly had new insight into the parable of the sower...it really is ridiculous that a farmer would scatter seeds on areas where they won't grow--how wasteful...how scandalously generous.

We left town, hoping our little garden box would be okay with out us.

And we returned to green leaves and shoots standing proudly above the soil. Just like that. Have you ever seen a bean plant grow? Two days ago, there was nothing there, and then, all of the sudden, here is this sprout that has pushed its way up. Beans aren't subtle; they don't gently creep through the soil. No, they burst out of the ground, leaving clumps of broken earth around them.

We might be those odd people the neighbors talk about. When we arrived home from our trip at 1:30 in the morning, we dropped our bags inside and went straight to the backyard to check on our garden. And since then, we've probably checked on it 3-4 times a day.

In gardening, we learn to trust and to let go, to celebrate and to hope. And probably, sometimes, we learn to be disappointed.