Metaphysical Lessons from Gardening

We on the prairie now enter the time of green grass emerging, as our Native Americans describe it. It is the time to plant. More lessons are to be gained from gardening than can be found if your hoe merely scratches the surface. There are deeper lessons. Let's dig for them.

For example, I put manure on my strawberries, but you probably prefer whip cream. Yes, this is a groaner variety of garden humor, but do seriously consider the predicament another gardener got into by putting grass clippings on his strawberries. On trash pick up days in the spring, plenty of plastic trash bags filled with grass clippings are at curbside awaiting removal. An avid gardener went around removing them before the trash haulers could get to them. He then thickly mulched his strawberries with that green gold. This method worked quite well, until the day he spread a bag of clippings that had been collected from a lawn freshly sprayed with a broad leaf herbicide. He sprinkled those poisonous blades of grass on his broadly leafed strawberry plants, and they all died.

The lesson for us is metaphysical as well as horticultural. Be careful about your close association with the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, words, and actions of others; they could be poisonous. A coating of negativity picked up from others can stifle your enthusiasm and kill your motivation.

Being cautious does not mean avoiding contact and conversation with others, but when you can tell the input is not nurturing, uproot yourself and move out of range.

I learned another lesson when I tried mailing a box of fruit I had grown. Any other kind of fruit would have shipped well, but I was going to mail paw paws. The paw paw is an exotic fruit common to Indiana (therefore nicknamed the hoosier banana). Being in the same climate zone as Indiana, paw paws thrive in Kansas. These egg-sized, mango-shaped fruits are very fragile and highly aromatic. To protect them from rough shipping, I wrapped each paw paw in newspaper, carefully packed them in a sturdy cardboard box, sealed all seams with wide packing tape, and drove to the post office. As I drove, the fragrant but abundant perfume of paw paw poured forth from the sealed package. Not even opening the windows cleared the air. As I neared the post office, I decided to drive on by, because I suspected that the mail handlers would balk at dealing with my package.

The lesson for me in this experience is that we cannot hide our strong points. Seek to mute them, like I did with the paw paws, just concentrates the effect which, good as it is, can be over-whelming for those not of your like mind. The exposure will not encourage them. Besides, if what you have is a true strength, you need not push it on others. High pressure sales are needed only when weakness is marketed.

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