During the past couple of weeks, we have been planting potatoes, onions, lettuce, and brassicas in the garden.
One of the ways that we grow potatoes is in fabric bags. We used the same bags that we used last year and put different soil in the bags. Another way that we planted potatoes was directly in the ground. Right now we don’t have a lot of mulching material with which is why we put the potatoes directly in the ground.
I planted the greens in the garden bed with the garlic that I planted last fall. I don’t have as much garlic this year as I had hoped because chickens loved digging in the dirt around the garlic and now much of it isn’t growing. The chickens in the garden was one of the prime reasons that we erected a fence around the garden.
We planted some of the potatoes in the ground outside of the fence and the chickens have decided now that they would dig in that bed instead. Because of that, we now close up the chickens most of the day and just let them out of their pen in the evening while I clean out their pen, gather eggs, and give them clean water and food. When the potato plants are well established, I’ll let them roam the property again, but until then, they will stay in the chicken house most of the day.
We’ve been putting other plants out on a table on the south side of the house to give them more sunlight during the daytime and then we take them in at night because the outdoor temperatures are too low for plants like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and some herbs.
A Spiritual Aspect to Gardening
When I work in the garden, I connect my gardening activities with my spiritual thoughts. This is especially true during religious holidays like the one we’re celebrating this week.
This week is called the Holy Week or Passion Week following the pattern of the Roman Catholic Church. This year the Orthodox Catholic Easter occurs on May fifth. The Christian Holiday is based on Passover even though Passover isn’t until the end of April.
With this in mind, here’s how I relate gardening to a spiritual experience.
- Just as the beginning of spring is for these religious organizations. For the Jewish people, the same time of year commemorates their escape from the bondage under the Pharaoh who had enslaved them. For Christians, spring is the time when Christ who was crucified at Passover rose again three days later. This time of year is when winter lets go of its hold on the world around us and allows nature to burst into new life.
- I can see God’s gift of eternity through the change in the seasons. He’s telling us that even though something seems dead, life continues. Jesus had said that “unless a grain of wheat to the ground and dies”, the plant could not grow. He was speaking of his own death.
- Like the cotyledons (the leaves before the first set of true leaves) that rid the plant of the seed hull, the Passover started Israel’s journey from slave to free people. Lambs died so that their blood could be spread over the lintels of the doors so that the firstborn children could live. Because of this, the Pharaoh had to let the people of Israel go.
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The Perpetual Homesteader 