THE TRANSPLANTING EXPERIENCE

In my previous post I shared my seed growing experience as a new “farmer”. This post looks at the next stage in my adventure.

As I continued to water the shoots that had appeared I saw a great deal of growth. In a short time I noticed the tomatoes, carrots, chard, and French beans were running out of soil in the trays. Mum told me they would need transplanting into pots so they could have the space to grow taller and stronger.
I thought, “Why can’t they go into the soil at the allotment? This new process is going to be long!” Mum explained that though the shoots were growing quite well, they were still delicate and needed a more sheltered environment to have the best chance of survival. At this stage they would not cope with the low temperature and exposure at the allotment.

I soon began to realise how labour intensive gardening was, and I was no longer enthusiastic. I would have to transplant every single plant from its seed cell in the tray to a pot, and there were LOADS of them!
Each tray had about 40 plants in them!
What was I thinking when I signed up for this!!
My hands became tired, my back ached, and it took forever!

That day I reluctantly learned the lesson of perseverance and had to exhibit tender loving care in order to remove the little plants and place each one into a pot with more soil. More watering was needed to ensure they did not dry out, but not too much to drown them. I had much to learn.

In life we can learn a lot from the transplanting process:
1. Manage the work carefully. Sometimes we can get overwhelmed by the amount of things we have to do, so it takes careful management, hard work and a lot of time to be successful. More often than not, it will take longer than you thought to achieve success.
2. Persevere to reach the goal. It is not easy to keep going when you are tired, or have lost enthusiasm, however it is the only way to make progress, one step at a time. When we keep the vision of what we want to achieve focused and clear in our minds, it helps to motivate us.
3. Discipline and Routine. It’s important to know what routines are important for success, for example the plants needed to be watered daily and having a regular time to do it helped me to get it done. I think it’s important to discipline ourselves to eat healthily, get enough sleep, drink water, exercise (especially walking in the fresh air), do everything in moderation, and have time to relax with family and friends.
4. Make time for spiritual wellbeing. God’s Word can only take root in our lives if we take the time to dig deep and search for its meaning. It’s more than a surface, shallow experience, visiting church once a week. If the plants did not have enough soil to grow in they would have died. If they only received water once a week they would have died. We need to have a relationship with God, and talk to Him every day to be able to know how to manage our lives effectively.

I would encourage you to give gardening a try, it’s an amazing experience to grow plants and food produce. Quite therapeutic and great exercise!

I will tell you more about my farming adventure next time.
Happy planting!