Nature vs. Me

This year in my gardens I’m growing tomatoes… and nature is growing tomatoes. We are competing and here’s where we stand. Nature is kicking my butt!

On the left, you can see an example of my plants. In February I started a lot of tomato plants by seed. Every day I misted the soil and kept the children away from them and watched them and faithfully moved them to the east window in the morning and the west window in the afternoon. And some of them grew and then eventually they all died. I had tried to ease them outside and the sun roasted them. So sad. I started more by seed and they died a mysterious death a few weeks later. I finally, out of time to grow more by seed, bought some plants from the store and put them in my plot. About half of these are also from a friend that had extra. And these are the survivors of that batch as about a third of those bit the dust too. I know how to grow tomatoes! Promise! This year they are not liking me though. Now, the plot I also put time and money and hard work into. I dug up all the grass and bought a lot of dirt and spread 6 inches of this awesome organic garden soil with mushroom compost mixed in. (By the way, buying dirt is a stretch for me so I had high expectations.) I’ve fed them with blood meal fertilizer and babied them along.

On the right you have nature. Last fall some of the late tomatoes fell to the ground and rotted on the vine in the garden. I spread a bit of the compost from my oldest compost pile (where we throw yard waste and kitchen scraps) in that area this spring in preparation to plant strawberry plants there. (By the way I planted them and they all died. Only 5 of 50 left. Heartbreaking story for another time.) Anyway, this spring when I was weeding I saw what I really thought were tomato seedlings popping up all over the old garden. I left them to grow. A couple months later this is what is there.

I must confess, though it is not to my credit, that my plants on the left must be watered every day to every other day or they whither and that nature’s plants on the right never need to be watered at all. From the beginning they’ve had a will to live of their own and never needed anything from me. A few days ago I pruned them because they were all over the place! So this is actually the growth left after a fairly severe pruning. And yes, these pictures were taken at the same time and the plants on the left are probably older than the plants on the right.

This is so like life to me. I can pour and pour myself into something and see little return, and then on the other hand, have life and growth unexpectedly bless me in it’s time. Sometimes my best intentions can be so frustrated. But at the same time what God intends to grow is just blessed. I’m so amazed by the way of things.