Homestead Food: Garden Update and Inspiration in Hard Times

Our garden is off and growing wonderfully, and it is so exciting to see the food that will soon feed our family start to take form.  I'd be lying though if I said that I wasn't disappointed when I went there late last week and saw the garden.  The quack grass was everywhere!  Not to mention everywhere that we had put the composted cow manure, there were tiny little weeds growing throughout.  I was so sickened by it all as I gazed out into my garden.  So now what?

We're hoping that by using natural gardening methods our no-till, no-weeding garden will prove to give us a bountiful harvest.  Ultimately that's our only goal.  Our garden has been planted to help us be more sustainable with our food by providing our family with healthy, homegrown, delicious, and cheaper food.  Right now, it's on it's way to doing that!

Like so many things in life, I could sit and talk about all of the bad.  Right now in our world, there is a lot of bad things happening!  It's easy to become overwhelmed and saddened and just want to give into the darkness, losing all hope.  We can't choose the things that happen to us.  We can't choose to avoid hardships in our life.  Sin is in the world, and because of it, we all as humans suffer with things we don't want to have happen.  

I could sit and focus upon the fact that our world seems to be crumbling, the coronavirus has changed our future permanently, violence is becoming more and more common, I could focus on the fear and division that our country is experiencing.  I could focus on the fact that my pepper plants are continuously getting eaten by some bug.  I could focus on the quack grass that's consuming my garden anywhere that there is sod exposed.  I could focus on the fact that my beautiful bean plants have been mysteriously beginning to lose their leaves.  I could focus on the disappointment of spinach season being over for us and my real sadness over this.

But instead, I'll hold true to what God has told me in Matthew 6:
20 Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. 

I'm going to choose to focus on the beautiful things that God has given me.  The wonderful parts of the garden.  I'm not going to worry about it- because even if our garden completely fails, we will be ok.  Even when I'm disappointed, my treasure is not here on this earth.  I have to remember that no matter what happens on this earth, our true home is heaven and I need to trust that all will be ok, no matter what.

So for me, that means focusing on the really wonderful things happening in the garden and praising God for those simple joys.  Firstly, I am so thankful for the rain showers we have been getting!  It takes us about an hour to an hour and a half to water everything in our garden by hand.  The beautiful rain is a very welcome gift to us and our growing plants!

Our onions are also doing extremely well!  I really haven't had much success with onions before in any of my gardens, but this year it looks like our crop will provide!

Other things to be thankful for include the fact that the carrots and radishes are up and doing well, the cucumber plants have made their appearance, and the corn is on it's way to being "knee high by the fourth of July."  Our blueberry plants have little blueberries on them, which give me so much excitement I can hardly contain it!  The lettuce and peas have also really started to take off, and despite the weeds, they look to offer a promising harvest.  

So when things are tough today and you look at the world and want to give into darkness, remember that God is good.  The world is as we see it.  Our eyes allow us to view what is happening in whatever way we choose.  We get to decide how we react!
22 “Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. 
23 But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is! 
-Matthew 6

Let's focus on seeing our positives today!  What good has your eye let in?  Let's share some positive stories with one another.