Finding God's heart in a garden

I visited the annual garden fair last week and was amazed at the beauty and variety, all artistically arranged on display tables. The many kinds of roses always delight, of course, but the onions, tomatoes and mega-zucchinis were not playing second fiddle! The four-foot-long yellow zucchini was given the scientific name “Lady Zucchino Ramicante, the Queen of Italy.” (Surely you jest.) I took a photo of Tonna carrying an eight-day-old giant zucchini as if it were a four-month-old baby. Her baby, of course. A Can-you-guess-the-weight-of-this-onion?-contest offered an enticing prize of—I can’t remember what—probably a bag of onions. I loved chatting with the gardeners as they stood by their products, proudly telling me about dirt, seeds, weeds, and the joy of gardening.

This garden fair is sponsored each year by the garden activity group, one of the many options for involvement here in the retirement community. The main responsibility of this activity group is the maintenance of the large community garden. Any resident who wishes can have his or her own plot. Paths between the plots let all of us enjoy the flowers, vegetables, and berries.

Not only we residents, but numerous beasts enjoy the garden. Early this morning, a squirrel darted across my path with a large lettuce leave in its mouth. More serious than this minor theft, a few years back a family of deer discovered the garden and began helping themselves daily to leaves, flowers, and veggies, an abundance to meet their needs. No matter how beautiful the deer, the gardeners did not appreciate this criminal invasion of property rights. They instituted a drive for funds to enclose the whole garden in a deer-proof fence, which meant it had to be high and properly angled.

The fund-drive was successful, although no one really wanted a fence. But an attractive black chain-link did the trick, and now it’s only squirrels and birds we worry about. (And no one worries about them much.)

My friend Milli is 93 years old and now walks slowly with the aid of a walker. Even so, there’s no way she’s going to give up her garden plot. She goes out to her garden every day, some days just for the exercise of getting there and back, with a rest in her garden chair in the middle. She considers it therapy. She tells me, “It makes me feel better being out in God’s green earth. My garden makes me think of resurrection and new life. It’s like the tiny poppy seed that becomes such a huge bright flower.” When I ask how long she plans to keep up her plot, she responds, “God only knows.”

I asked the chair of the garden club, Darolen, about the requirements for owning a plot. The guidelines are simple and include keeping one’s plot well groomed (weeds can spread to other plots), not growing tall plants (so as not to shade other plots—although I have spotted some criminal sunflowers), and basically “doing unto the other gardeners as you want them to do unto you.”

I must confess that Hal and I do not have a plot. When we joined the retirement community in 2016, we were still traveling a lot for a research project and knew we could not keep up with garden maintenance. At least that was the reason we gave. Now we’re reconsidering, wondering if we have the energy any commitment might require. But then again, maybe committing to a garden at this point in our lives would be choosing life.

I remember a poem I memorized as a child. It goes,

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
(Dorothy Frances Gurney)

A nice thought, but I’m not sure about the than anywhere else on earth part. I’m a wilderness person myself and prefer making my own path as I go. But I admit that I sense the presence of God in this community garden, especially in the early morning. Somehow the beauty of nature opens one’s heart. And probably working together in the dirt, and seeing the results come spring and summer, would be life-giving for us

I think we’ll give it a try.