THE WEEDING EXPERIENCE

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

Now I was beginning to feel like a real farmer as I saw the plants growing strong and tall in the pots. The tomatoes, carrots, chard, and French beans were looking good, and mum informed me that since the weather had improved and was warmer, the frost hopefully was gone, therefore the plants could go into the soil at the allotment.
I was looking forward to this stage but digging the ground and putting the plants in was back breaking work! I had to remove stones and weeds from the soil as well! And I hate worms!!

OK, I think I’m just a wannabe farmer, who has been too used to the city life and buying produce from the vegetable isle of the supermarket!
To be completely honest, this weeding stage was when things went rapidly downhill for me. It is very hard work! To stay on top of it you need to work on it every day or every couple of days. But without weeding, the lovely plants will get choked and die because the weeds are taking away all the nutrients. What a waste of time and all that effort to give up at that stage. But that’s what I did.

I sort of gave up. But you need to understand I was really busy and I became preoccupied with other things, like work, home and family responsibilities and I forgot that the plants needed water regularly. (I’m sure you heard that sad tale somewhere before). The poor plants were neglected again, had it not been for my ever loving veteran farmer mum, I’m sure they would’ve died from weed strangulation or sun burn!

In life we can learn a lot from the weeding process:
1. Remove the weeds before they kill your dreams: I think weeds may be bad habits, addictions, lack of self-control, lack of integrity, the love of money, worry and negativity, unforgiveness, ungratefulness. If we allow these things to take root in our lives they will choke the life out of our dreams and vision for the future.
2. Patience reaps rewards: We may want to see success quickly, but sustained growth (professionally or personally) takes time and patient hard work. We must expect loss and disappointment along the way, however we need to be diligent in weeding out / dealing with problems when they occur or they are going to become more rooted and problematic over time.

“Farming” has taught me many useful lessons about life. I will tell you about the final stage of my farming adventure next time.
I would encourage you to give gardening a try, its great exercise!

Happy planting!