What I Know About Motherhood, I Learned From My Garden: Watering = Nurturing

  A very momentous thing happened in my vegetable garden this week.  I watered my plants for the first time this year.  This is always an exciting time of year for me. It means the weather is getting warmer and the promise of sunshine is making me itchy to get outside.  It also means the start of weeding, because everyone knows that when you grow a vegetable garden, weeding is a necessary evil. 
  A couple of years ago, I learned an important lesson about watering gardens.  You only water where it is essential; otherwise, you have weeds galore all over your garden.  When I was younger, I remember my mom watering her garden with a couple of big oscillating sprinklers much like this one.

(Oscillating Sprinkler)

 Now, these sprinklers seem to be a very ingenious way to water your garden, because they are easily set up and even easier to move around.  The big problem with these types of sprinklers for vegetable gardens is that they water the entire garden area including areas without plants.  This creates much more work in the long run because you have to keep the entire garden weeded, not just the plant rows.  I don't know about you, but I really don't want to weed more than I absolutely have to.  There is too much other stuff to do to in a vegetable garden to waste time on all that weeding.  
  Over the years, I have paid close attention to how my parents garden.  Several years ago, they had decided to start flood watering their plants.  They built up edges around the plant rows to create barriers to hold the water in around the plants.  With this method, it gives the plants a much more concentrated dose of water.  This helps the vegetable plants to be stronger and healthier.

(Dirt barriers around plants)

 
  There is also reduced weeding, and you can spend more time doing the important things for your garden. Even though it is more time consuming to flood water, it does do a much better job at keeping your plants watered and nurtured.  As I watched my parents' gardens grow, I noticed that the plants that were flood watered were much healthier than the plants that were watered with the oscillating sprinkler.
  As I got to thinking about these two different methods of watering, I started thinking about the parallels these two methods had with parenting styles. We, as parents, can either be much like the flood watering method or like the oscillating sprinkler method.  When we are nurturing our "seeds/children" ourselves, we are more like the flood-watering method.  We are able do be more effective. We are able to more effectively build up barriers between our children and the evil influences of the world.  We are able to give them more concentrated doses of things that will help them in their lives.  This more concentrated effort in nurturing helps them to be stronger in the Gospel and better members of society.  This isn't to say there won't be any "weeds/bad influences" in their lives.  There will still be "weeds", they will just be easier to pull up and get rid of.
  The oscillating sprinkler method is much like letting others take over our job as nurturers.  If we let our neighbors, church leaders, friends, and media nurture our children, good things will still grow, but they won't be as strong and there will be a lot more weeds to deal with.  It will be harder to get rid of the weeds if we have not been there for our children.  
  Now, a word to those parents who have been good nurturers to their little "seeds" who have been overtaken by the weeds.  Don't give up hope.  Your little "seeds" are still there under all those weeds.  Those weeds can be pulled up and gotten rid of.  Don't loose faith that one day, those weeds will be gone, and your "seeds" will be able to get the proper nourishment and sunshine they need.  You have been given a promise that if you are faithful in your lives, those precious "seeds" will survive.
  Let us all be like the flood-watering method and give our little seeds the concentrated doses of nurturing they need to survive in this world.  Happy Gardening.

What I Know About Motherhood I Learned From My Garden: My Gardener, My Mother

  Last night, while all the guys were at the Priesthood session of General Conference, the girls in my family all got together.  We were sitting around talking about food, of all things, when there came a need to change the subject.  I mentioned that I had started a blog about my garden.  I mentioned the title of the mini-series that I am working on right now, and everyone just sort of nodded their heads and said that was cool.  That was the end of me talking about my blog.  Well, later on, it started bothering me that I was attributing everything I had learned about motherhood to my garden and not to my mother.  
  Now, I am a very visual learner.  I need hands-on experience when I am learning to do something.  So, what did I do when I started feeling like I was not giving my mother the credit she deserved (even though she would just shake her head and say something like, "I don't deserve any credit.  I didn't do anything."), I started to think about my garden.  I have come the realization that it isn't necesarily my garden that is teaching me about motherhood, it is that my garden is the visual learning tool I need to learn the lessons that my mother is teaching me.
  Here is the garden analogy for this post.  Every good seed needs a gardener to help it flourish.  When I have traveled to certain places that have beautiful gardens, I have never stopped to think about the people behind the beauty, but there is always someone.  Who is behind all the beauty you might ask? The gardener! The one who spends countless hours making sure that everything is well with the plants.  Gardens (flower or vegetable) don't just happen by themselves.  They need someone to plant the seeds, pluck out the weeds, trim the branches that will produce little or no fruit or flowers, train the branches to reach the height of the trellises, and nurture the ground so that the plants have proper nourishment.  They need someone to watch over them so that animals don't destroy them and make sure they get enough water so they don't whither away and die.  
  As I have learned more and more about growing vegetables, I am convinced that my gardens would not flourish very well without me spending the long hours I do taking care of them; making sure that they are properly watered and fed as they grow; making sure that if weeds come up, I get rid of the them so that the plants are not overrun; making sure that, as they get older, I am training the stems up onto trellises to make sure that the fruit won't be in the mud; basically, making sure that they are healthy and strong so that they can withstand the the heat of the summer and still produce the bounty of vegetables that I need for preserving in the fall.  
  Children are much like little seeds.  Like I said last post, they need to be loved and nourished just like little vegetable seeds do when they are planted.  When I was little, I needed someone to take care of me even when I didn't think I needed anyone.  So who are the primary gardeners in our lives, those who raise us.  My parents were my gardeners.  There will probably be another post about how my father is one of my gardeners, but I would like to focus on my mother.  I know it isn't May, the month we all love to celebrate mothers, but I wanted to let everyone know how wonderful my mother is and how she has been a "Gardener" to me.
  I don't know what my mother expected when she welcomed me into the world.  I am pretty sure that it did not even cross her mind that she was going to be a "Gardener" to me, her new little seed.  But that is exactly what she has been for me.  She has nourished me and carefully taken care of the weeds that threatened to overtake my life.  She has made sure that I have been supported on "trellises" as I was growing so that I could grow tall and strong and not end up in the mud.  I needed that support as a child.  Without it, I would have ended up wilted in the dirt, not knowing how to reach my full potential.  She worked hard properly nourish me in the things of the Gospel so that I would grow to a be strong member of the Church.  (I'm still working on the whole "strong member of the church" thing :)  She helped me be stronger by trimming the bad offshoots that threatened to produce small or no fruit.  She has been my strength for so long.  Now that I have a little "seed" of my own, I realize just how much goes into "gardening."  
  I am pretty sure that as my mother reads this post, she will probably wonder how she accomplished all these things.  She is probably questioning if she really was this kind of mother.  I want you to know, Mom, that indeed you have been and done all these things for me.  I cherish when people say I am just like you.  I feel that is the best compliment anyone can give me.  Thank you for your life and wonderful example.  I just hope I can be as good a mother to my children as you have been to me.  Thank you for helping me to grow and thrive in this world.  Thank you for being my "Gardener" and teaching me how to "Garden."
  And, I say to all who have little "seeds" of their own, Happy Gardening.  All the effort is most definitely worth it.

Here is my Gardener :)

What I Know About Motherhood, I Learned from My Garden: Let Children Be Children

Let Children Be Children:
  
  I have finally decided to continue with my garden blog.  My plan for the next several months is to write about things I have learned from my garden about motherhood.  Now that I am a mother and I continue to grow seeds for my garden, my thoughts have turned to how I can be a better mother.  My garden is providing wonderful insights into motherhood.  As a new mother, I would never ever claim to know everything about motherhood, but I hope that what I write will be both helpful and somewhat fun :).  

  Usually, I buy my onion, tomato, pepper, and tomatillo plants from a local nursery.  This year, however, I decided to grow all of them from seed myself.  It has been a lot of hard work and a lot of prayers.  It took a while for all the plants to come up, but after they had all made their appearance, the weather started to get warm.  I decided it was time to put them outside during the sunny hours of the day.  I thought I was being so clever because it is important to ween the plants off their grow lights and introduce them to sunlight slowly so they don't sunburn when you plant them in the garden.  Well, I was very good about moving the plants out during the day and in at night so they wouldn't freeze.  I made sure they had enough water and were only put outside on the warmest of days.  Unfortunately, I started to notice that they plants weren't looking as healthy as they had been before.  I realized that they were looking droopy and somewhat depressed and that I had put them outside too soon.  I had jumped the gun and had started their weening a little too early.  They needed to be kept in where it was warm a little while longer.

  As I have thought about this experience, I realize that kids are a lot like seeds and parents are like gardeners.  Children have this time in life when they just need to be kids.  We as parents have this time in life when we help our children grow.  Children need the warmth only parents can give and if we push them out into the "cold" too soon, they begin to look "droopy and depressed."  They need to be able to learn from our examples.  They need a safe place where they can make mistakes and learn from them.  There will come a time when our children will be ready for the "cold," but it is important to keep them "warm" as long as they need.  When they are ready, they will have what it takes to adjust to the changes around them, much like plants make adjustments from grow lights to full sunlight.  If we give our children the help, love, and support they need when they are being kept "warm," they are more likely to succeed when they are out in the "cold."  I am not saying that all children who grow up in a loving and peaceful environment will always make it, but they will just have a better chance of survival.  I am also not trying to say that children who are pushed out into the "cold" can't make it.  The lesson I learned from this is that for most children, they need the warmth only parents can bring.  Let us love and cherish our children.  Let us wrap our arms around them and tell them we love them.  Let us help them put down roots and help them grow strong before they have to leave our arms and find their own way in that vast garden we call the world.

 Now, back to my plants.  I am happy to say that most of my starts have perked right up.  I only lost 2 of the plants I had planted.  I love gardening and the lessons I learn when I open myself up to them.  So, whether you grow plants or you "grow" children, I say to you: Happy gardening!!!