This year I made the very intentional decision not to plant a garden. Some people have asked me “Why?” or “How can you NOT have a garden, it’s such a big part of who you are.” Yes, my garden has been a very important part of my life for several years. I have loved planting the seeds every spring and watching the miracles unfold in front of my eyes. It boggles my mind every single year. Tiny little seeds with the capacity to overwhelm me with so much abundance and goodness. It really is a blessing to have a garden and, even though, this year I won’t be witness to the miracles that happen in the soil, I will continue to hold immense gratitude for all the things my garden has taught me. In no particular order, I would love to share the lessons my garden taught me.
1.Plant the seeds and watch the magic happen. I think this holds true, not just with garden seeds, but also seeds of thought, seeds of intention and seeds of kindness. Do you have a dream? Plant the seed of your dream, water it, give it sunshine, give it some attention and see what happens. Watch as your ideas grow.
2. Be patient. Some seeds take longer to germinate than others, you cannot rush the process. Each seed has its own time just like each of your ideas and dreams have their own time. Some seeds may not germinate, and there is nothing you can do about it, except plant new seeds.
3. Gardens need sunshine and rain. Life isn’t all sunshine and rose, and even if it was, would we really appreciate the beauty of a glorious sunny day and a beautiful smelling rose without something to compare it to? The rain is as necessary as the sun and I think when we learn to embrace both, that is when we really grow. One of my favourite saying is “Even sunshine burns if you get too much.”
4. Some years are better than others. Over the years, my garden has changed a lot. At first, I didn’t even really know what I was doing, but I learned along the way. Sometimes my best efforts brought poor results in the garden. Some things I could control and some things I could not. And that is just like life, right? Sometimes we do all the ‘right’ things and we don’t get the results we want. I think that is okay. If there is one thing I have learned is that there is always another opportunity waiting around the corner. When my garden did not flourish as expected, I just bought my vegetables, no big deal!
5. Weeding is great therapy. I don’t know what it is about weeding but, it really is great therapy. There is something so immensely satisfying about pulling out the weeds to make more room for the vegetable plants to breathe and grow. Like most people I dread the task of weeding, but, every single time I weed, I find so much satisfaction that I am left scratching my head asking myself why I didn’t do it sooner.
5. Take care of the soil. This one seems elementary, but honestly, when I first started gardening, I didn’t know that you had to take care of the soil in order to get good results. I learned the hard way that you can’t just expect the garden to grow without proper nutrients and care. I think this holds true in all areas of our lives. If you want a healthy body, you need to move it and feed it nourishing food. If you want healthy relationships, you have to work at it and get rid of nasty weeds. If you want a beautiful home, you need to take care of it. And so on, and so on. I took the soil for granted until I learned not to.
7. Miracles lie beneath the soil. I am in awe every year when I plant the tiny little seeds and then watch them grow into huge plants that I can then feed to my family. It is absolutely miraculous. I often think of those tiny little seeds and their struggle to open up and to change and grow into the beautiful things that they are. To me, they are constant reminders of the miracles of life that surround us on a daily basis. Most of those miracles go unnoticed, but when you dig a little deeper, you will find them. I love the word “Grow”, for me it has deep meaning.
8. Not everything is as hard as it appears to be. For many years I avoided plants that I thought would be too hard to grow: garlic, for instance. My conclusion came from the fact that all garlic seemed to come from China or Mexico, where I assumed they had better growing conditions suitable for garlic. Oh boy, was I ever wrong! About three years ago a friend gave me some dried garlic cloves to plant in the winter; I panicked a bit, but, decided that with Google’s help, I might learn something. So in January of the following year I put the cloves in the ground, and guess what happened? They grew! The following summer I not only had beautiful garlic, but also garlic scapes – which I had no idea what those were until Google helped me with that question too. Once again, my garden provided wonderful lessons and an abundance of garlic. It was so easy.
9. Everything is part of the cycle of life. I have always hated endings and felt sadness when a party, a good book, a movie or a vacation ended. And, as summer comes to a close every year, I feel sadness at the death of my garden. However, over the years, I have finally come to embrace the cycle of life. It used to be so hard for me to pull the pea or bean plants out of the soil because I knew I was ending their life, but the thing is, they did what they were supposed to do and that was all they were supposed to do. They are not designed to live on and on. My garden has helped me reconcile some of the losses in my life; nothing last forever. So, now when I pull the plants at the end of the season, I put them in the compost and know that the cells that make up the roots, vines and leaves will decompose and carry on in another form. This gives me some comfort.
10. It's okay to say ‘NO’. This is probably the biggest lesson my garden has taught me. It is with great peace that I can say ‘NO’ to planting a garden this year, and in a tiny little crevice of my mind I can hear my garden reply to me, “That is totally okay, a break is good for everyone.” What do you need to say ‘No’ to? What is that tiny voice inside your mind telling you? Those tiny little thoughts, those tiny little seeds, they know what they are doing.
Rhonda Fransoo
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