The Abundant Garden

© 2009 Constance Hobbs. All rights reserved.

I'm always so surprised how relatively easy it is to grow vegetables. Nature has repeatedly returned my efforts with substantial abundance. I remember years ago I met an elderly gardener who told me it wasn't necessary to prepare the entire garden bed of soil, just the area around the planting itself. He told me to take some lime and fertilizer, mix it together, prepare a hole, sprinkle in the mixture, drop in your plant or seed, and voila! The lime sweetens the soil, and we all know what the fertilizer does. With these modest instructions I began to garden. I had such success I couldn't believe it. 

© 2009 Constance Hobbs. All rights reserved.

My first garden had quite a bit of sand in the soil which I found out is great for tomatoes and other vegetables as well. So, with very little knowledge I began to garden. The tomatoes above are a harvest from my most recent garden. Nature is so abundant, it's hard to fail as a gardener. Over the years I have discovered there are two secret ingredients to successful gardening that people rarely talk about, love and care. You have to spend time nurturing and caring for your garden or you won't have success. Isn't the garden really a metaphor for life? Take parenting as an example. You must love, care, respect, nurture, pay attention and give your time to your children in order to be a successful parent. Basically, what you put in is what you get out. I guess we could say the same for all relationship. The earth is bountiful. If we look out at the natural world we see vast oceans, the expansive sky, the infinity of stars and space and we realize we live in an abundant universe. Prosperity is our birthright. Just as the earth supports the growth of the garden with love and care it supports us and cares for our growth as human beings.