How does your garden grow? Ours is doing decent this year. It’s really an odd year for gardening. We have to water constantly because we’ve had no appreciable rain in nearly two months. We have a lot of produce, but none yet ripe, except for cucumbers which are thriving, but you just can’t keep a good cucumber down.
It’s been a particularly decent year as far as the necessity of replants. Last year we replanted so often that we finally gave up and bought produce and did no canning. This year we’re planning to put up a mess of pickles tomorrow evening. You see last year we had a pest problem. Deer landed right in the middle of our garden quite often even with a fence. They were just so brazen about it too. You could walk within 10 feet and try to shoo them away and they’d look at you as they were taking that last bite before leaping out. This year it is different. We rethought how to secure and protect our garden. We’re learning as we grow, I mean go.
We decided on different fencing, and believe it or not, it is much more light weight than our layers of chicken wire and seems to be more efficient. It’s a nylon fencing that is easily repaired when Haddy is butterfly chasing. Nevertheless, it so far has protected us from the mowing deer.
As I mentioned, we did, however, have to replant a few tomato and pepper plants early on because of culprits. Twice actually before we put additional safeguards in place. Isn’t that so like our lives, sometimes it takes us a few replantings, a few replacing, a few problems, before we figure out we need a safeguard.
One of the safeguards we put in place was a solar light. Nighttime animals obviously don’t like night. Tony installed a small solar powered promo light in the garden. Every time there is movement in the garden, the light comes on. We think this light, and the ridding ourselves of one culprit has helped keep our garden safe.
While walking the other morning, I saw the light flash on. It was very bright in the dark. I thought about how like Jesus that beam is. When we have installed Jesus into our lives, He is our safeguard, He is our protector. When the culprits of the world come round, and they will, they may steal a little fruit, chomp on a few leaves, but when Jesus’ Light shines, the darkness flees, the Light scatters those invaders. Sure, we may be left wounded, our plants may be topped off and our fruit scarred, but when the Light shines, the darkness is gone, the enemy retreats and we are bathed in His Light.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. John 1:5
As I was walking, I thought, next year we need to put the light up straight away. Instead of trying to control the problem, we need to be prepared and prevent the problem, to the extent we can. Much like life, we can’t control what other creatures will do. But, we may have much less replanting, and certainly less aggravation and heartache, if we just install the Light and allow Him to shine into our darkest places.
The light of God surrounds us;
The love of God enfolds us;
The power of God protects us;
The presence of God watches over us;
Wherever we are, God is!
by James Dillet Freeman