Confessions of a Mediocre Gardener
Some fragmented thoughts on my messy garden plots, my chronic not-enoughness, the Parable of the Sower, a lovely memoir, and cookies
Thursday, September 8
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Greetings, friendly reader.
Here in West Michigan, we’re getting hints of the coming change of seasons. Our mornings are darkening, the weather cooling. I’m putting on a light jacket for Fozzie’s first walk.
As the weather shifts, the community garden slouches toward slumber. The other day, I thanked the summer crops for their bounty. Our sunflowers have been especially lovely this year; a handful blossomed conventionally yellow, but most turned out rich, velvety shades of burgundy and chocolate brown—a surprise and a delight. Though a few tomato plants still have flowers on them, most have given all they have to give. The dried beans have nearly all been harvested; my hands have been busy shelling and sorting while I watch TV.
As I’ve worked in the garden over the past few months, I’ve mostly tried to keep my eyes on my own plot, because comparison will always be the death of me. To the north, I see Roger’s space—tidy fencing, meticulous mulching, careful organization. His zucchini plants, full and lush, remind me that I’ve yet again failed to grow a single zucchini. My neighbor to the west has a neat row of scallions lining the path and regal gladioli dotting her plot. To the south, I see soils cultivated by someone I’ve never met. Neat rows explode with color—yet more flowers in all different hues. Bean vines climb a wooden A-frame, fat purple pods ready for a Magnolia photo shoot. One of their pepper plants alone has more fruit than all of mine combined.
My plot is messy. The uninvited morning glory—not glorious, morning or night!—and the rising ragweed tell a story of my insufficient weeding. The withered spinach and the brown, lacy leaves of plants decimated by Mexican bean beetles bear witness to my recent inattention. It’s remarkable how easily my eye turns to the shortcomings, ignoring the good harvest. Never mind the wonderful tomatoes we’ve enjoyed for weeks—the Sun Golds’ tart-sweet bursts, the meaty goodness of the Cherokee Purples, the fried green tomatoes and the caprese salads. Forget the bounty of the bok choy, much of it shared over meals with friends. Did we enjoy our spring spinach? Can’t remember.
Even with all I’ve done, it’s so tempting to think that it isn’t enough. And it’s so easy to magnify that sense of not-enoughness into something more systemic: It wasn’t just my labor that was insufficient. It was also me.
Not attentive enough.
Not hard-working enough.
Not consistent enough.
Not patient enough.
Not diligent enough.
Not enough.
Just me?
This is my third season working one of my plots, my second season working another. I’m gradually learning the peculiarities of these spaces—how the sun shines at different times of day, where the soil is sandier and where it has more clay, which sections seem completely free of some pests that plague others. Last season, I planted about a third of my allotment with cover crop—mostly millet and field pea—because one of the unfortunate things about the community garden is that they never let the land rest. But I’m still me. Yes, I’m learning and changing and growing, but I’m also inconsistent and lazy about weeding and even lazier about mulching.
The other day, I was reading the parable of the sower, that famous passage from Matthew 13 in which Jesus talks about seed sown in different soils. I didn’t much like this parable when I was a kid, because it seemed to reinforce the very thing that was bedeviling me in the garden: my sense of not-enoughness. Whenever I heard it taught, the story seemed loaded with warning and laced with threat: God forbid you’re barren earth or rocky ground or a thorn-choked field. You have to be the fertile soil.
Except... what if you’re not?
My seminary classmate Werner Ramirez, a pastor at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, preached a lovely sermon about this passage mid-pandemic.
He, too, recalled the way the parable was preached as frightening: “I vividly remember the interpretation that was given to me and other teenagers... and it scared the hell out of me, literally. What if I was not good soil?” he said. He ended up giving his life to Jesus over and over and over, “just in case.” But questions lingered: “Where is the grace in this message? Where is the loving God I was taught about?”
At the Farminary, we learned a different way of reading this parable, one that focuses less on what is than on what could be: the process of becoming. As we learned more about the cultivation of the soil, we were invited to consider whether the parable could be not a chronicle of threats but instead a picture of transformation. What if it depicts the slow and steady process, in anyone’s spirituality, of preparing good soil? What if it invites us into deeper perception of that evolution, such that we patiently attend to healthy growth?
So often we fixate on the end product, when it’s the process that matters too, and that’s true whether we’re talking about a community-garden plot or our spiritual lives.
Even the hard path contains the potential for good soil—with wind, water, and time, rock can soften—and perhaps the birds that snatched up the seeds drew nourishment from them and ended up depositing them somewhere they could flourish. When the sun shrivels a sprout on the rocky ground, death isn’t the end of the story; organic material slowly builds up. The thorn-choked field might not be prime for planting, but thistles and thorns can helpfully indicate what’s going on in that soil—and anyway, the thorny plants aren’t immortal. None of these circumstances is terminal. All are summons to attention—invitations to consider what could be.
Another weird thing about the parable: The blame seems to rest with the soil, but what about that sower? He seems to be a terrible farmer. Who just haphazardly tosses seed here and there? (Full disclosure: if you saw my “rows”....)
Maybe this oft-ignored detail contains the good news that Werner wanted from this passage—and perhaps this profligacy contains the antidote I need for my chronic not-enoughness. Once again, I’m returned to the abundance of God’s grace. In the image of a sower throwing seed everywhere, we get a picture of a God who sees things multi-dimensionally and whose lavish love reminds us that we’re met by love wherever we are and whatever we’ve done or haven’t done. Through it all, “God still throws us grace,” Werner preached. “Nothing is wasted, no matter what season we’re in.”
What I’m Reading: I haven’t managed to read many books recently, and certainly not for pleasure. But while traveling with my nephew, I read Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart. Zauner, who is also a musician better known as Japanese Breakfast, hooked me on page 2 with her rapturous praise of H Mart, one of my favorite supermarkets. H Mart, she writes, “is freedom from the single-aisle ‘ethnic’ section in regular grocery stores.” So true! Crying in H Mart explores Zauner’s fraught relationship with her mother—and after her mother’s death, her wrestling with the profound grief. Cooking and eating are also major themes in the book, and it’s one of the rare narratives in which I’ve felt a real resonance to the portrayal of a food culture. “Food,” Zauner writes, “was how my mother expressed her love.” Given how many months Crying in H Mart has spent near the top of the best-seller list, I’m probably one of the last people in the U.S. to read this book, but if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.
As much of the world continues to reckon with changing climates, it was fascinating to read about Horace Smith, a Nevada rancher who reevaluated his relationship with the beaver, a creature he once considered a pest. Tucked into this New York Times story is a lesson about venerable ecosystems that flourish when the different inhabitants are allowed to do what they were born to do. It’s really a tale, I think, of learning to be better neighbors.
What I’m Cooking: I rarely bake. It’s not something I learned to do growing up, and I also don’t have much of a sweet tooth. But the new season of The Great British Bake-Off starts next week, it’s one of the only shows we watch when it actually first airs, and I am already excited for the inevitable Chocolate Week episode that they always film during an unseasonable heatwave. Over the weekend, I made cheesecake, and the recipe called for a crust made with Nilla Wafers. I’m not a fan of all the industrial ingredients they put in store-bought cookies, and I’m constitutionally inclined to find the hardest possible way to do things. But it turns out that a homemade version of Nilla Wafers is pretty easy. This recipe makes buttery, not-too-sweet morsels of goodness that go beautifully with hot coffee.
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup flour (most recipes call for all-purpose, but I only had whole-wheat on hand and they turned out great)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Preheat your oven to 350°F, and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Beat the butter and the sugars until fluffy and light (I did 4 minutes on medium-low). Mix in the milk and the vanilla until combined well. Add the flour and the salt, stirring gently until there are no more dry spots—but don’t overmix! Using a small spoon, drop dollops of the dough onto the baking sheets. Bake for about 25 minutes, until the edges turn golden.
We’re in the homestretch of planning and prep for the 2022 Evolving Faith gathering. If you want to understand a little more of the heart that Sarah Bessey and I bring to this work, The Christian Century recently interviewed us. We have wonderful speakers this year—gifted teachers including Michael Curry, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church; Barbara Brown Taylor; Cole Arthur Riley; Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg; and Kate Bowler. Once again, though we’ll gather most of the speakers in Atlanta, the conference will be online-only, on October 14th and 15th. But we also know it’s a ton of info and storytelling for two days, so registrants will have access to the videos until early in the new year. I hope you’ll join us. You can get tickets here.
How did your garden do this growing season? What flourished, and what failed? I’d love to know.
As ever, I’m so glad we can stumble through all this together, and I’ll try to write again soon.
Much love,
Jeff
“…and anyway, the thorny plants aren’t immortal. None of these circumstances is terminal.“
Love this take on the soil. I also struggle with never feeling like I’m doing enough.
I’m a container gardener in the East Bay Area outside San Francisco: my long bed of clay that parallels the house is too hard to break up and I have large pots balanced on flat rocks on top of the clay. Last year I had so many cherry tomatoes and the pickling cucumbers provided many pints of dills. Green beans grown in a long window box were plentiful and the jalapeños kept my heat loving granddaughter happy. This year has been pitiful. I got three tiny tomatoes on one plant that one of our dogs loved. One pint of dills. A few handfuls of cherry tomatoes and I can’t even talk about the green beans. Yes it was a weird Spring, but seriously. What went wrong? I had not properly prepared the soil in the big pots after two growing seasons. Poor soil, unthinking gardener.
Thank you for you writing. Your gentle spirit shines through every word.