Been pondering this morning on the beautiful vegetable garden I had the spring of Rosie’s death. I poured all my heartache and grief into my little kitchen garden and it flourished. I built a spider web trellis from twine for the cucumbers to climb, put a small brick path through the herbs, made a scarecrow from a pair of Chief’s old overalls. The scarecrow was holding an old wooden push plow. Spent an hour looking for my photos of that garden this afternoon. No luck finding them. This photo is from last year’s flower garden.

Isaiah 61:11 reads “For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.” Our faith is like a garden. We have to nurture our faith through prayer and Bible study and be careful to weed out life’s temptations.

I wrote a blog about Chief’s and my Daddy’s gardens, two different gardening styles but they both grew delicious vegetables for their families, both proud of what they harvested. Daddy never met Chief but I know they would’ve been great gardening friends. Here’s the blog from three years ago about their gardens — Such a pretty pleasant day it is. Bright clear sunshine. A few Clorox white clouds hung on the the sky’s clothesline. Cool breeze, just strong enough to coax a quiet yard symphony from the wind chimes. Was thinking if it’s this beautiful here on Earth it must be glorious in heaven this morning. Chief always said heaven was just an extension of earth. He thought he’d continue to garden and I’d continue making biscuits and homemade jelly.

I can just see Chief and my daddy in their gardens in heaven. Each one taking a break, their large calloused suntanned hands folded over the end of their hoes. Daddy in a long sleeved shirt, old white farm hat on his head, wiping his brow on his shirt sleeve. Chief in his garden, shirtless and tanned, his sweaty t-shirt hanging in the brush nearby. He’d be wiping his brow on a red clay stained handkerchief, one that needed a good Cloroxing. His blue jeans would be slipped down from sweat enough to see some skin that wasn’t kissed by the sun.

Daddy’s garden would be pristine! Long even rows, beautiful vegetables and corn growing tall in the hot sun, no grass between the rows. A little Sevin dust sprinkled around. Chief would have a little grass here and there, some turnip green and collards plants he had let go to seed to save for the next year. He loved to bring me a bouquet of those blooms mixed with wildflowers. He’d have lots of card-table size garden plots with short rows. The county drug helicopter always thought his plots were growing marijuana. The drug helicopter landed once in Chief’s sister’s backyard to search Chief’s garden plots for marijuana. His sister blistered their ears! No Sevin dust on his plants. Chief would just patiently pick the bugs off his garden plants.

Daddy would have the traditional vegetable garden. Yellow crooked-neck squash, silver queen and truckers’ favorite corn, blue lake pole beans, big boy tomatoes, cabbage, colored butter beans, zucchini, purple hull peas, okra, eggplants, peppers, cucumbers, onions, and red potatoes. That’s all I remember, but sure my brothers could add a few more vegetables. They planted and worked it every summer till they married. He’d always have a row or two of peanuts, too.

Chief would have traditional vegetables but he’d sprinkle in Chinese cabbage, patty pan squash, Brussel sprouts, white eggplants, English cucumbers, peaches and cream corn, purple potatoes, and different colored tomatoes. I’d always nag him telling him to just plant what we knew we liked to eat. He just couldn’t resist some of the interesting vegetables he saw perusing his seed catalogs. I’d tease him and say he just enjoyed watching things grow. He always wanted me to come see how beautiful the potatoes were when the plants filled out their rows. And they were beautiful dressed in their dark crayon greens.

The last time I helped daddy in the garden we planted 120 broccoli plants together. He’d walk the rows digging the holes and I’d plant the broccoli. He’d stop and rest his hands on the hoe handle waiting for me to catch up to him. When we were through he rode to the creek twice, coming back holding a ten gallon bucket of water out the window of the truck so we could water the plants. I bet his arm and shoulder hurt him that night. We planted a row of garbanzo beans that day, too, but they never came up. He had eaten them from the salad bar in a restaurant and loved them. Guess that’s the only thing he ever planted that didn’t flourish. Bet Chief could grow them!

That was Daddy’s last garden. He had a heart attack at the kitchen table in early July of that year and passed away. I like to think I’ve inherited his green thumb. My garden in the large farm cow lick pots is doing well. I’ve got some nickel size tomatoes and lots of baby yellow squash coming along. Have a few tiny bell peppers and oodles of cucumber blooms. The spring of Rosie’s death I had the most beautiful garden. I poured all my grief and heartache into that little kitchen garden and it flourished and was a comfort to me.

“Imagine your mind like a garden and your thoughts are the seeds. You get to choose what seeds you plant in it. You can plant seeds of positivity, love, and abundance. Or you can plant seeds of negativity, fear, and lack. You can spend time trying to take care of everyone else’s garden. Or you can work on making yours beautiful and attract other beautiful people to your garden,” Jake Woodard.

Working in the Earth’s soil is therapeutic. Watching a seed sprout and grow and then produce is so exciting. The wonders of nature are beautiful!

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.” — Francis Bacon