My Secret Garden

After a good deal of work (and some help from a friend), I finally cleared a path through my weeds leading to a small area of my yard surrounded on one side by the back of my shed and on two sides by the ten foot wooden fence we put up several years ago when we weren't getting along with our neighbor (God rest her soul).  Now, you can walk through the tall weeds into this hidden, sunny, spot, which, today, I transformed into my secret vegetable garden.



I know what you are probably thinking right now.  "Did she say secret vegetable garden?  Secret gardens are supposed to have beautiful, fragrant flowers, a calming fountain, a sculpture create from balanced stones, a large quartz crystal and a meditation corner.  What kind of nut would put all that work into creating a secret garden, and then fill it with vegetable plants?"  Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I am that nut.

I do love fragrant flowers, and I find them peaceful and relaxing - but I have a bit of a passion for growing vegetables, herbs and fruits.  There are a few reasons for this.

The first reason is that I find a great deal of pleasure in the act of going out into my garden and picking the vegetables and herbs that I will use in creating a meal.  It gives me a feeling of connectedness to the food, and of pride in knowing that these items that I planted, cared for and grew are now providing a delicious sustaining nutritious meal for myself, my family and my friends.  Also, produce that has been picked moments before serving is so much more delicious than produce purchased at a store.



Secondly, I find these food plants to be quite amazing.  Even though I am getting older now, these life giving plants still astonish me.  Think about it - lets say you go to the store and buy one green bell pepper.  If you keep all of the seeds from that pepper, you will be able to start fifty to one hundred new pepper plants.  If each of those plants only produces five peppers - you still will have so many peppers that you will not be able to find enough people to feed.  Or think of an apple - one apple can give you eight apple trees - which will then feed you apples for the rest of your life.  I find it quite astonishing to consider how perfectly this system works - and I wonder why it is there are people in the world, still, who do not have enough to eat.


Finally, watching my vegetable plants grow from one day to the next excites me.  It is with wonder that I watch these plants, who start out so tiny and fragile, so in need of protection and care, grow in size and in strength into life giving sources.  These plants return to me everything that i put into them, plus more.  I know it may sound a little weird, but I care deeply for my little plants, they are close to my heart, and spending time with them and caring for them brings me a sense of accomplishment, a sense of delight, a sense of satisfaction, and a sense of peace.



I imagine that when any person finds something they really enjoy doing - something viewed as pleasurable rather than as duty or work (even though hard work might be involved) - something that they do simply because it feels good to do it - they feel much the same way I feel in my secret vegetable garden.  



So, as much as one person might feel contented and harmonious in their hidden flower garden - so do I feel hidden away with my eggplants, my tomatoes and my seven varieties of pepper.  I am absolutely thrilled to have completed the project of preparing my secret vegetable garden, and I am so looking forward to sharing my bounty with all of my friends.