I take my daughter to the church garden early on Saturday morning. We bring her “tools” – a small plastic shovel and rake, and a bucket for collecting rocks. I have my garden gloves, so we also bring along a pair for her to wear. Hers are the stretchy kind she wears in winter – blue, with pink hearts on them – but she doesn’t seem to mind.
She is still a little too young and grabby to really be helpful in the garden. I have to steer her away from the not-quite-ripe tomatoes, and when I try to get her to pull weeds, she pulls a few too many plants instead. The other gardeners are gracious – they are good-hearted, patient church folks who know that there are things more important than perfect gardening – and one of them invites her over to look at a caterpillar.
The beans have come in, and the squash and zucchini have gone berserk, doubling in size over night so that we’ve had to line up volunteers to harvest every day. Tomatoes will be here before we know it, and rows of corn at the far end of the garden are already higher than my daughter’s head. Cantaloupe the size of softballs lay in waiting, with pumpkins promised before fall.
It’s the second summer for our community garden, and it feels good to be here on this sunny morning, working together. Like most good projects, it’s been championed by a small handful of hard-working and faithful people, and supported by many others who come when they can. We don’t have individual plots; everybody pitches in and does what’s needed. The harvest gets shared with anybody who works in the garden, and with anybody at church who wants some, and with the local food pantry. On Sunday mornings, folks bring in extras from their own gardens and add it to the bounty near our front doors. We don’t keep track of who brought what, or who took what, or who worked the hardest. If you can help, you help. If you need some, you take some.
On this morning, after the beans have been picked and we’ve made a dent in the weeds, we gather in the shade for a blessing. One of our most regular gardeners talks about how important this project has been for her. “I sit at a desk all day long,” she says, “and then I get to come out here and play in the dirt, and it’s wonderful.” We ask God’s blessing on the ground and on the harvest, and pray for the people this food will feed. Someone has brought a guitar so we sing a little bit, which feels just right. The breeze sweeps through us just then, a welcome freshness on the hot morning, and I am pretty sure it is the breath of God.
