Side Quest: In the Garden

Do I have a green thumb? Oh no, not me. I’ve got what you would call a black thumb. I can kill anything. Anything, I can assure you.

I’ve been given all kinds of “unkillable” plants over the years, and admittedly, some last longer than others—but eventually…they all die.

I either hyper-fixate on them and drown them or I completely forget they exist and never water them at all.

There is no middle ground. No world in which I remember their existence just the right amount and give them the proper care they require on a consistent schedule. Nope. Not gonna happen.

And yet…nearly every year, I try again. I don’t entirely know why.

I suppose I still believe it’s a skill I should be able to learn someday. And with the state of the world over my lifetime, the idea of growing even a portion of our own food feels like something worth pursuing.

One year, I did manage to grow a lot of squash and zucchini—but I can only take a small fraction of the credit.

We were living in an apartment at the time, and my dad generously offered to collaborate with us using his backyard raised beds.

So we bought plants—far too many—and quickly filled the beds.

Then we paused and asked: now what?

I had the audacious idea to just plant them in the ground. The regular ground. The red clay soil.

My dad scoffed. They’ll never survive, he said.

I shrugged.

I had been reading in the Old Testament—likely in one of the prophets—about God bringing life from seemingly impossible places.

I boldly recited the verse to my dad and, grinning, assured him that God would bring the growth, knowing deep in my spirit that He would get the glory and these plants would thrive.

We planted them.

And then something unexpected happened.

I kid you not: every plant we had carefully planted in the rich, store-bought soil of the raised beds…died. No produce whatsoever. Nothing.

But the ones planted directly into the hard, red clay?

They thrived.

They grew enormous—wild, sprawling, almost out of control. We had more squash and zucchini than we knew what to do with.

My dad and I just laughed.

Now, I can’t for the life of me remember the exact verse, but even nearly ten years later, the message has stayed with me.

It’s a quiet echo of what Paul writes so simply: we may plant and we may water, but it is God who gives the growth.

Thankfully, with this black thumb of mine, growth isn’t limited only to the garden.

Next up: Roadschooling—a peek inside bringing our schoolwork along for the ride as we wrapped up our unit studies on the road. Coming June 16.