Garden Therapy

My garden used to be my therapy room. Digging in the dirt is soothing and healing. I loved our garden on the farm. The rich dark soil would grow everything and anything I planted. Unlike our city soil which is mostly clay. I think they forgot to spread the topsoil back over our lawn after they built the house. It's taken John five years to perfect his grass and it wasn't easy. 

There is a square of soil left mostly unplanted in our back yard that the only thing that grows there is milkweed. I have tried to plant rhubarb there three times. The plant will look good for a while and then suddenly gets sick and dies. I persisted and tried two more times and the same thing happened. So we gave up on rhubarb.

There is nothing more disappointing than having a plant die or a seed not come up. Expectation is high when we plant something. It is a practice in hope to plant a seed or a seedling. We have gotten some perennial flowers and grasses to grow with the help of bagged topsoil and fertilizer. But here our expectations are lower. 

"Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground -- trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," (Genesis 2:8-9 NIV).

We use potted plants with rich top soil we buy from the store for tomatoes. They do pretty well, nothing like the soil on the farm, though. But it gives me something to get my hands dirty with. Life is better with rich dark soil and a plant or two.

Thank you, God for creating gardens for our physical and mental therapy. You are so good, Lord. Amen.