Planting Garlic – August 2020
It’s mid-August here in Pennsylvania. Hot, humid, and stormy on every front. This past spring during quarantine, we doubled our raised garden planting area and are finally seeing some productivity from our labor. The tomatoes, potatoes, beans, peppers, and all sorts of different herbs have taken off. That is encouraging! What started off as an amazing looking cucumber crop resulted in every plant dropping leaves and withering to nothing. We tried numerous methods for salvaging them, but after six weeks, it was time to chop them down and call them a loss. That is discouraging.
Over the years, my husband has asked me to try my hand at planting garlic. Nearly every forum describes planting and harvesting garlic as being super easy, fun, and very rewarding. They promise that once you taste homegrown garlic - you’ll never go back to store-bought. Over the past few years, we put in a few cloves here and there and didn’t get anywhere close to the results we had hoped for. I blamed it on timing, soil, weather, undersized bulbs and just continued to buy garlic at the store.
And then came the year 2020, when each of us has been handed a brand new set of circumstances, ever-changing variables, and seemingly no specific reference manual by which to navigate. As I was weeding out a remote hidden corner of one garden box, I discovered that deep in the recesses of the overgrown comfrey patch, three beautiful garlic plants had emerged. The forums I read suggested that based on the length of time they had been in the ground, they were ready to harvest. Out came three incredibly small heads of garlic… beautiful, but ever so small. Frustrated by what I considered to be another crop failure, I tossed them into the compost bin only to be salvaged hours later by personal guilt.
I followed through on the drying method and set them out for regular use in the same bin as the perfectly formed store-bought heads - making them appear to be even more inferior. I couldn’t bring myself, though, to use the cloves…
And then came mid-2020 with a fresh, new set of frustrations and dashed hopes. This time, mandates well beyond our control and multiple pairs of eyes looking at mom and dad to fix what seems so broken, garner hope where it seems hidden, and root out despair so it doesn’t consume.
One particularly hot and humid evening, I prepared dinner with a fresh new set of tears as I searched for direction to simply be. To maintain, to lead, to minister… As I gathered up the ingredients for our typical summer salad, I saw those tiny little garlic cloves peeking out from under the perfectly manufactured heads and something in me broke. “I don’t care if these take me an hour to peel. Tonight we will eat these little gems.” It did not take me an hour to peel those little cloves, in fact, they seemed to lose their peels almost effortlessly. The taste was incredible and everyone noticed the culinary shift!
Early the next morning, I sat with my coffee and calendar, trying to get in some prep time for our upcoming school year. A year that holds the potential to be anything but predictable. A school year many are dreading, deeming the past spring semester a dismal failure. I realize now in August that any hand-written calendar prominently posted to the front of the fridge is best filled out in pencil. Any artfully crafted, color-coded, elaborate system indicating the daily coming and going of each person only holds the potential to simply mock and scream failure each time we open the fridge. I’m learning.
As I flipped through curricular options, I received an email reminding me that it’s time to pre-order garlic bulbs for fall planting. I was simultaneously bombarded with two seemingly conflicting thoughts... no planting garlic again - only to fail / the incredible taste and delight of the previous night’s menu.
At that moment, I feistily chose the path of trying again. I have changed many things in our garden areas over the years, but perhaps the biggest change has been from whom I’m learning. I have discovered a few resources and people who have provided detailed instructions for particular parameters. I’ve watched them fail and try something new. Fail and try something entirely different. I’ve watched success after success, failure… success. They haven’t been afraid to reveal their failures so that others might reap the benefit of their successes. They accepted the cost of success included attempting to fix what was broken, garnering hope when it seemed most hidden, and rooting out despair so it didn’t consume.
As I look out to the future of our world, the list of unknowns seems to overshadow and loom greatly. Like a giant dichotomy, much of what we need to know, yet don’t, is clear… and much of what we do know varies based on beliefs and perspective.
More than ever, I find myself navigating not just our curricular map, but our life in general with a healthy collection of failures mixed in with some significant successes. Some of the successes have been hidden deep in the undergrowth… sitting dormant and ready for harvest. Tiny, small nuggets of hope in the midst of a failed crop. Other successes have been bumper crops overshadowing one failed garden row.
Either way, in this current season, we may need to dig even deeper to discover… to find the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We may need to gather up all our successes, all our failures - and rest them at the foot of the Cross. Lay them down at the feet of the Creator of Heaven and Earth… who does not change like shifting shadows. He, who, never seeks our performance, but rather our hearts. He nods with love and approval on the one who leans into His heart. Failure. Success.
We pursue excellence. We pursue success. And yet we do so in a way that comes under the giant shadow of GRACE… Jonah 2 walks us through this process with stark clarity.
Vs. 7-9
“When my life was ebbing away, I remember you, Lord,
And my prayer rose to you,
To your holy temple.
Those who cling to worthless idols
Forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
SALVATION COMES FROM THE LORD.”
