Dear friend,
Though I felt a bit silly when I clicked “Add to Cart”, I went ahead with the purchase anyway. Can you imagine the potential? Okra that grows twelve feet tall! I entered my card and daydreamed of reaching high up for its plump pods. “I’ll gather them in a charming basket”, I thought, “…and I will pickle them to my heart’s delight.”
My vegetable delight didn’t stop there. In filling my cart, I was like a mad-woman on a mission, packets of potential added and added. Alongside the towering okra were rare seeds from purple cauliflower, beans of all sorts, knobbed pumpkins, and an absolute rainbow of tomato varieties that were chosen for their intriguing flavors and wild colors.
It became a collection of ridiculously, beautiful vegetables.
I’ve built my garden on production — and as a home gardener growing solely for my own family, this unintentionally became my measure of its worth these past years. This had a very unintentional consequence, unfortunately: what should have given me great pleasure had been stripped of just that.
Many of us don’t refuse pleasure and fun outright, we just ask for it to justify itself; it’s as if only when something is…
useful enough,
productive enough,
responsible enough,
only then does it deserves our attention.
Not everything needs a justification to earn a place in our lives.
I didn’t become overly-practical in the garden because I hated beauty or pleasure, but rather, because it’s how I made my devotion intelligible and justifiable to others. After all, few question the delivery of compost when there are hundreds of pounds of produce filling baskets to prove its value.
And unintentionally, this is how it happened. My worth, my gardens worth, became tied solely to its yield.
Years ago, I very much intended to become a gardener that could grow bountiful yields of vegetables — I took lessons from local farmers, cleared more and more land for expansion, and became completely devoted to high-yielding varieties. A successful season meant lugs of onions lined up in the root cellar, endless boxes of carrots and beets in the cold room, and more canned goods than our family could possibly eat in a season. The eighteen gallons of sauerkraut currently in my refrigerator can attest to just how productive our harvest can be.
Yet while the bounty from the garden was meaningful in feeding our family, the maintenance and the pace were almost unbearable. Spring, summer, and fall days were spent curing, canning, pickling, preserving… until the delight of it all was long-lost.
I began to wonder: what am I doing if not taking delight in what I claim to love?
In an age of pragmatism and efficiency, it’s remarkably easy to discard “unproductive” hobbies and delights without realizing what we’re giving up:
Music made not to produce a record, but to make a joyful noise.
Art painted not for sale, but for creative expression.
A book read not for enlightenment, but for an enjoyable story.
A funky broccoli that benefits both our tables and our eyes.
The home garden can be a place for exactly this sort of ridiculous expression. A place for theatrics! For whimsy! For silly delights! For joy that’s not measured solely by output.
So while I may not need a dozen loofa, but I’ll plant the vines just the same. And even if they never justify themselves with monetary usefulness, is it not still valuable to my soul as a gardener?
Do I not grow such a garden with peace in my heart — lingering over the beautiful curls of cucumber tendrils, showing off warty-squash with delight, tending to my precious seeds with the deepest of care.
This year, I look forward to taking a much different approach: one that holds delight as an orientation, not an indulgence. And while I offer you my humble garden as an illustration, the application of this principle certainly reaches far beyond my rows of tomatoes.
I look forward to this year’s garden — a garden full of provision and pleasure. And may it not stop there. Productivity and delight can be lovely friends.
Love,
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