What Gardening Teaches Me about Writing

Some of you may know that a couple of years ago, I began gardening. Two years ago, I put in a small flower bed, and discovered a love for cultivating beauty in this way. Last year, I added containers with tomato plants, bell peppers, artichoke (which never grew), and herbs. I discovered a love for eating fresh from my backyard (or, side yard, rather).

This year, we’ve expanded. My husband built a few raised beds, and I’ve added carrots, cucumbers, peas, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, onions (sweet and green), green beans, and squash to last year’s repertoire (senza that stubborn artichoke).

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My endeavor fills me with anticipation and fear: Look at the tiny seedlings emerging from the ground from nothing but that seed I planted! one moment, and What the bleep! Clouds and clouds! I need more sun! These veggies will never grow! the next (accompanied by the appropriate amount of hand-wringing–my mother tells me now I know the life of a farmer).

But more than that, my endeavor with gardening teaches me about writing.

Novelist Valerie Sayers says, "Whether their eyes are on God or not, all writers worth reading go out on the muck, in the muck, and stir up threat, possibility, celebration crisis" (Valerie Sayers, "The Muck" in Image, no. 60, p. 107).

Gardening requires I thrust myself into the muck. Sometimes this brings delight in the way a mudpie does to a four-year-old. Sometimes I think with disgust, "Ah, that’s cow manure beneath my finger nails." But in the muck I am.

Gardening offers hope, but no guarantees. Every day, I go out there. Has anything grown? Is anything new? But until I pluck the fruit (or vegetables, as it were), I don’t know if it’ll work.

Gardening requires tender care. I can’t force anything, though I’d like to. I can buy a farmer’s almanac, read up on what’s best for my areas and the how-tos, and follow the rules, but I can’t make my garden grow (50 points for naming the song and musical that references).

The elements may be against me, but I must press on. For example, we had a freeze the other night, a fairly late freeze for the Dallas area. I followed all the planting instructions of what to plant when. I prepared for the freeze. I did everything right, but I lost my cucumbers to the bitter night (as well as several flowers–impatiens and potato vines, mainly). The elements are against me. Isn’t this the consequence of the Fall? But God commands us to continue with our work, to press on. The rejections may pile on; life may intrude (silly bills!), but write I must.

And sometimes the plants are heartier than I expect. The freeze, for example, only took my cucumbers. It appears all other plants are intact. Torrential rains failed to wash away my seeds. Peas sprout, though I was told, "Good luck with those finicky plants!" (Although we’ll see if I harvest vegetables from them when the time comes.) They remind me of those obstinate characters: They have a mind of their own, and sometimes that’s frustrating, but sometimes it brings unexpected pleasures.