Down Home: Listen to Dalton Roberts's podcast about "6 Happy Endings"
By Dalton Roberts
Commentary
As some gardener once said, "The closest I have ever felt to God was when I was in my garden." When February rolls around, the craving to get in the dirt sets in. It was in February that I started all my lettuces and greens (collards, mustard and kale).
One of my favorite things was to buy a dozen or more different lettuces of all colors, mix the seeds together and plant them so I could just pick any area and have a ready-made salad. To give it a little zing, I'd throw in a few mustard leaves. One lettuce I always planted was Burpee's Green Ice. It is actually so full of juice you can feel it burst in your mouth.
When a bad back caused me to give up gardening, my neighbor, Waymon Wilson, came and set out four tomato plants for me. He knew doggone well it would give me the fever again. I am managing to grow a few things. Last year Dr. Don Loftis brought a bucket of tomatoes, and Hoyt Branham drove down from Birchwood with okra, squash and cucumbers to augment my tiny crop.
Let me assume the role of a sawdust trail evangelist and urge every able-bodied person with a 10-square-foot plot to plant a garden. Think of your awful food supply and then think of Rev. Aimee Semple McPherson, who would throw up a tent in a town and come flying down the aisle on her motorcycle, slide sideways in the sawdust, jump off, blow a whistle and scream, "Stop! You're on the road to destruction!"
That's right, folks. That's how powerfully I feel about the urgency of having a little garden. Even if you live on the 10th floor of a high rise, find a place the sun reaches and grow something. You need to have that sweet feeling of being one with the Creator.
I was living in the Watering Trough community the first eight years I grew a garden. The only place I had to put it was in an area of the backyard where all the topsoil had been dozed off in a landscaping project. I felt I was partnering with God in saving that little piece of land. In the first few years, I foot-spaded the whole spot several times and worked in many loads of chicken manure and river sand. It grew some things from the start, but after about four years walking across it was like walking on an air mattress. The soil was breathing and the worms were working. I didn't put any kind of fertilizer or pesticides on it to kill the worms. Worms are the plow of God. My garden grew enough food for three families thereafter.
I've written about learning to meditate to lower my blood pressure, but I have never given proper recognition to my hog snake ("Pweshus Fwend") for kicking off my meditation career. He came up to my garden several times a day and went up and down the rows eating insects. Everyone wanted me to kill him, but when I didn't they quit coming down to the garden, and in those times of solitude, I meditated!
This would be a good day to go pick out some seeds and start discussing things with your partner.
E-mail Dalton Roberts at DownhomeP@aol.com.