(Katie helping me gather the last of the beans)

(Rows of freshly planted carrots)

Over the weekend, S and I planted the fall garden.

If you’re new to the blog, let me give you a little background:
My husband, S, and I live in a basement apartment. We pay very little rent – very little rent. Instead of paying for our living space fully in cash like normal people, we pay part in cash and part in hours devoted to maintaining an organic vegetable garden. Over the summer we had a large bean garden, a smaller garden with okra and sugar snap peas, and the hoop house, which had strawberries, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, watermelon, and lettuce

In preparation for the winter harvest, we cleared all the beds, both inside and outside of the hoop house. Because it can get quite cold and occasionally snowy where we live, we only maintain the hoop house through the colder months.

As we hoed, raked, measured rows, planted seed, and watered, I thought about how the land has waited for us, empty for about a month after we pulled up the summer plants. Very few weeds had sprouted, and only in one bed. Everything was blank, open.
It was all just unrealized potential.

In a garden, nothing meaningful grows unless you intervene and plant something. It will not thrive unless you weed and water and watch for bugs.
In life, it is the same.

Our time, our talents, our interests are all unrealized potential until we intervene and coax something specific to grow. We will produce nothing meaningful unless we make it so, and we won’t continue in that vein unless we continue to be encouraged, set goals, and eliminate that which threatens our growth.

What proverbial ‘beds’ in the garden of your life are empty or overtaken by weeds?