The Garden: A Half Parable

By Kelly

It was a beautiful spring day.

My husband was in our backyard, facing the lake, which was rippling blue-green in the sunlight. But he wasn’t watching the waves. He was ripping up the grass, beating back a hedge of overgrown bushes and pounding in stakes.

He was creating a garden.

For me.

Up to that point in my life, I had never gardened (unless you count the requisite lima-bean-with-spouts experiment I managed in kindergarten). But even I knew enough to gasp when he revved up the tiller and started turning over rich, midnight-black soil.

It was loam, the gardener’s holy grail.

That soil was so fertile, so packed with potential, I was sure anything would grow there.

I was right. Anything did. Everything did.

Just a week later, tiny green plantlets were raising fresh leaves to the heavens. Within days, those same plants were putting down deep roots. A few plants, perhaps relying on secrets passed down from their ancestors, grew faster than the others. They quickly sprouted flowers, and their leaves grew wide and dark, the better to shade out the competition.

I marveled at their rapid development.

And then I pulled out every little plant. They were all weeds.

The soil was so accepting, so pure, the weeds took off before I had a chance to plant what I purposed to grow: tomatoes, green beans, strawberries, zucchini.

Weeds are like that. Best watch your soil, especially if you’ve got loam. If you don’t plant what you want when the soil is receptive, you might not get the crop you expect.

Kelly also blogs at Love Well.