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Monday, June 28, 2010

A Garden Lesson

Today is a beautiful, sunny, great drying day. And we need it! As of Sunday night we have officially broken all known records for rain this month in Marion County. Even though we don't have a rain gauge out yet, I'm sure it was well beyond broken on our farm too since Ethan noticed that somehow the heaviest part of the cells were usually right over our house.

So with the drying day today, I decided to go take a peek at my garden. If you remember from a post a few days back, there wasn't much left surviving. Basically potatoes and onions were all that looked promising. Today, all but one section of my onions were gone. The leaves were not only brown, but many of them rotted to the ground. So I dug onions. I ended up with about a gallon of small onions good for roasts. There was one area yet where the leaves are yellow/green. I left those and will watch them closely.

Next I peeked at my potatoes. About half were still nice and green, the other half were browning quickly. I dug up a couple of the browning plants to find that the potatoes had turned to liquid. I then decided to dig up a couple of the green plants. Although those potatoes weren't liquid, they were mush. I dug up every single plant in hopes of finding SOME potatoes. Every once in awhile I would find one, and I ended up with about 1/2 gallon.

Last week I was threatening to mow my garden. Now I'm going to. And then hopefully till it again to do a fall planting. There's really not much left. I have a few tomatoes and pepper plants that are hanging on for dear life. They are small, however, so I will be surprised if they produce anything. I also have about 10 yam plants. Also small and just hanging on, but I will leave them for now. Other than that . . . well, that's it.

It is pretty disappointing. Not only the cost of seed, but the time that I've spent out there. It was a reminder though of life in general. Really, my responsibility in life is to be faithful and put forth my best. I can do everything possible in my control, but the fact remains that life is out of my control. This would be a pretty depressing fact, except for my trust in the Lord. He is the one in control, and He is faithful and good.

Things still fall apart in life, but the Lord provides for our needs. I have seen it time and time again - especially on the farm here. From a rather low demanding/high paying job that covered almost exactly one of our house payments while we were paying two - for almost the exact time we were paying two, to friends helping to finish our house when our house suddenly sold and the buyers wanted in NOW, to a truck load of firewood showing up unannounced every time we would be burning our last supply of wood.

My garden this year has been quite disappointing, but it is just a "hobby" family garden. It has reminded me of a good lesson though for the more significant things in life. Be faithful in what you do, realize that not all failures (and even successes for that matter) are dependent on us, look for lessons that can be learned, and trust in the Lord even when things just don't seem to be working out. He knows our needs and is faithful and good to supply our needs (many times in Himself alone).

4 comments:

Frugal Sara said...

I'm so sorry. It is terribly frustrating when you see all your hard work wasted. I too have had trouble this year in the garden. I lost all of my peas due to all this crazy rain. It looks like I will lose most of my tomatoes as they all have blight already.

Hopefully you can replant and get some crops this Fall.

Nicci Lynn said...

We are going through the same thing here - carrots have rotted completely, peppers are sort of hanging on and the tomatoes....oh..they have seen their better days! SO DISAPPOINTING! It gives me a deeper respect for families hundreds of years ago that didn't have the convenience of Walmart just up the road with miles of produce for them as their "back up" plan. Wishing you a HUGE successful/bountiful fall harvest for your late plantings!

www.AFarmhouseFull.com

Walter Jeffries said...

Years like that teach me diversification. Not just having different plant types so some will survive but also having a good crop of animals. With the variety is how our ancestor's made it through tough years. Or they migrated. That too.

dining sets said...

Having a garden is not easy. It is hard to make sure that your plant is having all what they need. And sometimes you already give everything but still the result is bad. I wish your tips work properly.

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