Through the Garden Gate: July, The Early Harvest

Last year our friend, Don, gardener extraordinaire, gave us six strawberry plants. We planted them, and although we wanted to test a few berries, I dutifully pulled off each, early flower, because I knew this would yield a greater crop the next year and allow the plant to put all of its energy into the plant.

This year our six plants have morphed into over one hundred plants. And they are covered with berries. Big, beautiful, juicy strawberries.

The rest of my garden is still growing; the beans just beginning to flower. Harvest is still a month off, but these first berries give me hope and bring great delight to our tummies!

I know I’ve used a lot of garden metaphors for life, but I’m a gardener, so I see a lot similarities. And I spend a lot of time alone among my plants, so maybe it makes me weird that way.

I find myself, after many years of hard work, finally entering the early harvest in my parenting. I’ve done a lot of plowing, a lot of weeding, a lot of pruning. And I can honestly say much of what I now enjoy with my daughter, as in gardening, is a product of the Master Gardener. As in gardening, we can do our best, but in the end we simply have to sit back and pray. Pray for the right amount of sun and rain and just the right soil for all of our hard work to take root. There’s great freedom in knowing you’ve done your best and then leaving the rest in God’s hands.

Even when we begin to enjoy the fruit of the early harvest; the joy of friendship with our kids in the middle teen years, there is still sometimes hard work left to do. Still weeding and pruning. If I just picked my berries and left them alone, I would have no berries next year. As I pick, I pull weeds. The same is true in my daughter’s life. It’s a fine balance, this delicate dance between girlhood and womanhood. I struggle with it everyday; finding just the right mix between friend, advisor, parent, coach. When do I step in? When do I say hands off? When do I listen? When do I speak? When do I giggle with her and when do I admonish?

And not far behind are two more unique plants that need lots of tending.

But, how blessed I am to tend these gardens. Gardens of earth and plants and gardens of hearts, minds and lives. There is no greater privilege in my estimation.