GARDENS

Growing up on a small farm in northeastern Pennsylvania, we always planted a garden in the spring of the year. My mother was the garden matron, and she made sure that my siblings and I helped her plant seeds, erect supporting sticks where needed (pole beans and other plants), and weeded carefully so that we did not destroy any growing items. 

Seeds for lettuce, carrots, radishes, and other plants are tiny and do not need much soil over them. Others, like corn, peas, beans, cucumbers, and pumpkins, have larger seeds and are planted slightly deeper in the rows or in mounds. Potatoes and turnips were placed carefully in separate rows that went still deeper into the ground. Strawberries and tomatoes were planted as small maturing plants.

After our garden was planted, we would explore it regularly to see how “our” plants were doing. As soon as possible, we would taste the raw and growing beans, carrots, radishes, and whatever else looked good to eat. For the most part, however, we had to wait until Mom said it was time to pick the vegetables from the garden.

Our garden wasn’t small, and we planted a lot of potatoes and sweet corn in it. It was an area of the farm that I loved to explore and, even, work in. Putting my hands into the soil and turning it over was an exercise that I realized, much later, contributed to my understanding and love of God’s creation.

I left the farm when I turned 17 and went off to college in Delaware, where I saw only grass, watermelons, wheat, and some peaches. There were no gardens on the college campus, but I did meet my future wife there.

One summer I worked for a tomato packing company in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where Amish farmers grew beautiful specimens. The company bought them and sent them to New York markets. I still love ripe garden-produced tomatoes, and we often had them in our backyard in Papua New Guinea.

The Kewa people, with whom we lived for many years, were excellent gardeners. Their skills were enhanced by shovels, axes, and bush knives, but the women would still use their digging sticks to break the clumps of sod and till the soil. The main staple was sweet potato, and it required a lot of work. Once the rows or mounds (depending on the area) were formed, the vines were planted. It took about 5 months for the sweet potatoes to mature, so the women were always working in gardens, forming mounds to ensure continuing produce. Excessive rainfall or even the very occasional frost (we were in the Highlands) could be disastrous.

We began living with the Kewa people in 1958 and gave them seeds, as did the agricultural officers later, for beans, corn, squash, carrots, cabbage, and other vegetables. We also planted a garden of our own and lived mainly from what we or the people grew. We knew how important gardens and food were for survival. The Kewa people also tended pigs, so fences were needed around the gardens. Nothing was worse than having a pig get into your garden.

When God created the universe, there was no garden, so he planted one in Eden and put the man he had formed in charge of it. God made beautiful trees and good fruit grow there and a stream from Eden watered the garden. God gave humans the right to eat fruit from the garden, except for one tree. You know the rest of the story—and humans have been eating “forbidden fruit” ever since.

Gardens, orchards, and vineyards—the Bible has many stories about them. People were buried in the gardens, royalty had exquisite ones for banquets and festivities, and vineyards were a source of income. The garden tradition continues—couples love to be married in gardens and many countries and cities have beautiful ones, often with varieties of roses. The woman in the Song of Solomon wanted to make love in a garden.

In America, beautiful flowering trees are planted along roads, and, in Texas, we are gifted with bluebonnets every spring and crepe myrtle of various colors during the summer. And in Australia, we learned that what Americans call a lawn, is a garden, which usually includes flowers and fruit trees as well.

Gardens are the symbol of God’s continuing provision and of the beauty of his creation. For example, he promised compassion on Jerusalem when he said, “Though her land is a desert, I will make it a garden, like the garden I planted in Eden.” (Isaiah 51.3) He also said, “I will bring my people back to their land. They will rebuild their ruined cities and live there; they will plant vineyards and drink the wine; they will plant gardens and eat what they grow.” (Amos 9.14)

In John 15, Jesus reminds us about gardens and vineyards when he says that he is the true vine, Christians are the branches, and the Father is the gardener (the husbandman, the vinedresser, or keeper), the one who prunes the branches to bear fruit. 

We will have “the right to eat fruit from the tree of life that grows in the garden of God.” (Revelation 2.7)

This is a glimpse of the new garden, in the city of God and “Nothing that is under God’s curse will be found in the city.” (Revelation 22.3)

No weeding needed in that garden!

Karl Franklin