Goodthoughts

Tomatoes and God's Extravagance

Last week while we were at the beach...our tomatoes in our vegetable garden started multiplying!  We knew it was going to happen and left word with our friends to come pick all they wanted.  Even with all that picking...we still have tons of beautiful red tomatoes!  I picked all these this afternoon.   The biggest basket was so heavy I had to ask Chuck to carry it inside for me!  We have tomatoes everywhere!!

The leaves have fallen off some of the plants and when you walk into the garden... the tomatoes appear to be happily floating in the air!  

An old wooden chair I turned into a trellis has fallen over with the weight of its bounty.

Every time I look at all these beautiful, juicy...absolutely yummy tomatoes, I am reminded of the generous extravagance of God. 

All I did was plant one tiny seed per plant...a little watering and weed pulling on our part...a little staking and tying...and God somehow turned that seed into more tomatoes than Chuck and I can possibly eat! 

God's extravagance doesn't end with tomatoes...it's in the beauty of the flowers...the birds song...the gentle breeze...the warm sun...the ocean waves...laughter...hugs from someone you love. 

Maybe God is extravagant with us...so we'll be like that with each other.   The more tomatoes we pick...the more we have.  The more tomatoes we give away...the happier it makes us! 

There is no shortage of anything in God's extravagant economy...not tomatoes...not smiles...not love.  Our job in life is to remember to be thankful for all God gives us...and pass it on with a smile!

Praying for a mantis

One day while watching tiny squash bugs crawling all over a squash leaf in our organic vegetable garden I thought how nice it would be to have a little army of praying mantises gobbling up all those nasty little bugs!  Every time I saw a suspicious looking bug getting up close and personal with one of my veggies...a praying mantis came to mind...really more of a wish than a prayer.

A few days later while dragging the water hose past the vegetable garden to a backyard flower bed...a praying mantis jumped on my shoulder.  It startled me so...I swatted it to the ground.  As he fell to the grass I realized that I had just tried to get rid of the very thing I desperately wanted...a praying mantis!

I bent down and looked at the grass and there he was...a baby mantis.  I picked him up gently and carried him to the garden and sat him on a squash plant and told him he could eat all the bugs he could find.  

The next afternoon while weeding the labyrinth...I raised my head and found myself face to face with another praying mantis...this one bigger and more mature than the first one.  I cupped my hands around him and gave him a free ride to one of the tomato plants.

A few days ago, Chuck notice a praying mantis sitting near a lavender plant by the driveway.  He was the biggest one yet!  I picked him up with my hands together.  He stuck his head out to look at me but didn't make any attempt to get away. 

When I got to the garden,  I put him on the trionfo violetto beans growing up a big teepee.  He sat there a few seconds just looking at me...sort of that "look of love" Pretty Kitty gives me.  Then he jumped back toward me and I caught him in mid air on my hand.  He turned his face up toward mine and just looked me in the eyes...I had the strange feeling that he liked me.  And I knew I liked him! 

We did the routine two more times...me putting him on the beans and him jumping on my hand...and then on my shoulder...each time making eye contact.  Finally, I carried him to the cucumber vines and sat him down on the ground.  He stayed this time, but he seem to watch as I walked away.  I sure hope he enjoyed a delicious bug buffet! 

Life in the Garden of Eden

I love spending time in the Garden of Eden these days...thankfully no snakes so far this year.   The garden's grown a lot in the past month...it's gone from baby to young adult stage.  Best of all the tomatoes are starting to turn red.  They're not quite juicy ripe on the vine yet...but almost!

Here's a video of the pictures we took yesterday.  I hope you enjoy it.  The garden is about 20 x 40 feet with 4 raised beds and the rest planted in the ground.  Straw covers the paths and keeps the weeds and mud down.  We planted way too many cucumbers.  We eat cucumbers with every meal but breakfast and give them away whenever we get a chance!  I love picking the vegetables.  It reminds me of an Easter egg hunt with brightly colored eggs.  

We have a family of baby bluebirds in the box near our garden.  I looked in 2 days ago and the birds were actually hatching out of the eggs!   It was so amazing.  I took a couple of pictures of the 4 baby bluebirds yesterday when they were 24 hours old.  They're so cute and their pictures are at the end of the video.

The video is sort of a walk from our tiny pond at the bottom of our back porch steps, past the herb garden and into the Garden of Eden.  Let's go!!

Babies in the Garden of Eden

We planted our vegetable garden a couple of months ago.  Like doting parents...we've watered and weeded...inspected leaves...picked off bad bugs...and given our young plants some encouraging kind words.  Now, we're getting to the fun part...beautiful blossoms followed by baby veggies!

Like any proud parent...I have a few choice pictures to share...like this cute little squash...our first!  I can't wait to cook up a skillet of squash and onions.  Add some corn on the cob, tomatoes, and lima beans and you have the best summer dinner ever!

This ribbon wrapped teepee is home to our English peas.  They're just starting to mature...they're great just eaten right out of the pod...some never make it inside!   It's amazing how different fresh vegetables taste from their canned version on the grocery shelves.  I've never really cared for English peas, but I love these! Even if peas only produced their delicate blossoms and vines they would be worth growing in the garden.  Maybe by this time next week we'll be eating these beautiful Brandywine tomatoes.  In summer the answer to the question, "What's for lunch?" is usually...tomato sandwiches!!

I picked these carrots tonight.  Aren't they pretty?  

The basil and Swiss chard are coming along.  I've got to figure out how to cook the Swiss chard.  I must confess I planted it because of its name...Bright Lights...with veins in varying bright colors!! 

I hope your gardens are doing well.  Email me some pictures of your garden "babies."  I'd love to see your gardens, too!

Every garden-maker should be an artist along his own lines.  That is the only possible way to create a garden, irrespective of size of wealth.
Vita Sackville-West

The Garden of Eden is ready to bloom!

Our vegetable garden...which we affectionately call The Garden of Eden, is all planted and full of promise!  I thought you might enjoy a tour of what's going on so far.
Our garden has 4 raised beds...and like the original Garden of Eden has a tree in the middle of it....an ornamental cherry...no forbidden fruit in sight!

The bed on the left has a bamboo teepee in it for the English peas to climb up.  It's amazing to watch those tiny tendrils reach for the satin ribbon wrapped around the bamboo!

 
My favorite bed right now is the lettuce.  Maybe you can see from the picture that it's divided into 4 sections...each a different type of lettuce.  Just for fun, I planted the seeds in spiral and starburst designs and it was really pretty when it first came up. 

Chuck and I eat salad from our garden almost every day.  Eating a salad made with 30 minute old lettuce is such a treat!
 
Beans are popping up everywhere!  We have limas, 3 different varieties of green beans, sugar snap peas and butterbeans.

My favorite veggie...the tomato!!  This one is called Hillbilly and is supposed to be an early producer.  I sure hope so...tomatoes in early June would be a perfect way to welcome summer!!  Can't wait till we start eating tomato sandwiches for lunch every day!  If you've never tried it...bread...mayonnaise...tomato slices...salt and pepper...yummy!  If you want to make it a gourmet treat... add avocado slices!!!

Gardening is such a satisfying hobby...it builds you muscles...wears you out so you sleep like a baby...lets you work with God's creation as an intern...lets you see colorful changes and beauty every day...plus...if you have veggies you get taste the fruit of your labor, too! I can't think of a better way to spend a day!

God's Chat Room

I loved to play outside in our backyard when I was a preschooler.  Our yard was fenced in and had a swing and sandbox to keep me busy. 

But some of my favorite memories are of just being quiet and observing the world.  Being low to the ground myself, it was easy to look...really look....at leaves, flowers, rocks with sparkles, wiggly worms, butterflies, and birds. 

I planted a moss garden under my bedroom window of different varieties that I had collected from the woods.  My favorite was the kind with tall red hairs growing out of the velvet green.  I loved to just sit and run my hand across it.  I dreamed of having the whole backyard covered in moss! 

I had heard about God.   And God seemed very close by in the backyard.  I felt wonder when I looked at all the things he made.  Sometimes I would talk to him.  Sometimes I would just feel him...with me in a very soft way.

"You've always been there, Lord.
Before I met you, I felt you with me.
Before I could write my name or tie my shoes
I could feel you're presence close beside me.
I felt you mostly when I was outside
looking with wonder at the world you made...
running my hand over the soft blades of grass...
looking for far away places in the clouds...
feeling a gust of wind blow my hair...
You were there...singing your gentle heartsong...
when there was no one there to listen...but me.
It's melody stirred memories in my soul
of things my mind...was yet to learn."

Nature is God's chat room.  Spend some time outside taking it all in...waiting to hear what God is saying...when there's no one there to listen...but YOU!

The sunflower has a friend

Yesterday Chuck, my sweet husband, gently hoisted our sunflower like a giant flagpole ...and tied it to the garage with garden twine.  Its leaves were wilted but he gave it a good drink after standing it back up.  This morning that plucky sunflower stood towering cheerily over the garage roof...looking almost back to normal! 

Don't you just love to see the underdog come back?  Sometimes all it takes is a little help from a friend!  Stay sunny!!

Keep your sunny side up

Every morning we look out our bathroom window at our raucous little vegetable garden in the backyard below.  Chuck and I have been keeping an eye on the mammoth sunflowers planted among the okra and cantaloupe in front of the garage wall.  It's been kind of like watching a horse race...even though all the seeds were planted at the same time...some of the sunflowers are outrunning the others by a mile!

One sunflower amazed us for days as it grew a few feet taller than where the roof and wall of our ancient garage meet...still no bloom but inching its way to the treetops.  So you can imagine our disappointment 2 days ago when we looked out the window and the sunflower was nowhere to be seen!

That morning I shuffled out to the garden to have a look.  I "shuffled" because I had pulled some muscles in my back a few days before and had been moving in slow motion ever since...a frustrating situation for a gardener who loves pulling hundreds of feet of water hose all over the front and backyard gardens. 

Anyway, the giant sunflower had not walked off, but had fallen over from its weight and was lying on the ground beside the tomatoes in our raised beds...its petals almost ready to unfurl...its roots now mostly out of the ground.  What a shame to see this enormous flower come to such sad end...right before it was about to do what it was supposed to do...BLOOM!  I couldn't leave it lying on the ground like that so I propped it up on the post that was holding up the tomatoes in the raised bed...the uprooted sunflower was leaning precariously at a 45 degree angle.  I watered its roots and went inside. 

This morning I looked out the bathroom window to check on the sunflower.  It was still at an awkward looking angle...but it had managed to turn its large head toward the sun and unfurl its petals.  It sort of looked like somebody in a lounge chair relaxing in the sunshine! That sunflower may have been down but it wasn't out!!

Challenges can be frustrating and discouraging.  Whether it's a temporary inconvenience like me and my sore muscles or a more serious overwhelming life situation that you may be facing right now...we can take a cue from the flowers...nature may not be perfect but it's always persistent...and we can still bloom...maybe in a different way than we had planned...if we act like that fallen sunflower...and keep our sunny side up!! 

A Prayer for God's Garden

Chuck's sermon this morning, titled "Hope for the Planet", was about how we are called as God's children to care for his creation and not exploit it.  Chuck and I have both felt an urgency about this over the past few months.  We have been learning about organic vegetable gardening and are growing our own organic garden this summer.  We've lost the squash and zucchini to the squash bug, but we are picking the harmful bugs off and trying to let our garden balance itself.  It's been a real shift in our thinking from the past. 

Here's a prayer I wrote earlier this year about the way I feel about the present condition of God's world.  How do you feel about it?

I imagine your  world, Lord, and feel so small.

We’ve messed it up, this beautiful world…just in my lifetime.

Like greedy, unappreciative children, we’ve ransacked your gifts…taking what suits us and throwing the rest away like worthless trash.

We’ve replaced the real things of life with imitations–

plastic homes,

plastic food made of artificial ingredients in a factory far from home,

plastic flowers in our outdoor pots,

plastic families living isolated lives…watching their personal TV alone.

We’ve polluted the water.

We’ve manipulated plants to have patents but no seeds.

We’ve killed off some animals to extinction and exploited others as if they cannot feel.

It must make you very sad, Lord, to see your beautiful gifts, so awesome and intricate,

scattered in disarray all over the world.

What can one person do to right the wrong that seems hopelessly out of control?

I will start today to clean up the mess…to put things back right.

I will work in the garden you have given me.

I will plant trees to replace asphalt.

I will treasure things made from loving hands.

I will see that my hands are always busy giving good to the world and not harm.

I will eat real food that is grown close to home.

I will take time to nurture and appreciate the beauty in nature.

I will tred softly upon this earth and not take advantage of any living thing.

I will take time for my family and friends and not confuse the virtual world with relationships.

I will make the world around me kinder, more lovely, more natural, more joyful than it was before.

I will need help, Lord, since there’s a lot I don’t know how to do.

But, I will do what I can,

and learn what I can,

and encourage others to do the same…bringing hope and healing to their own garden….

called home.

Amen.

Garden slide show

more about "Garden slide show", posted with vodpod