The Joys of Weeding

Weeding a flower bed at the Oliver base.

There is something I find incredibly satisfying about weeding a garden.

I have worked and felt like I have achieved something for my efforts....I can see the difference I have made. Something that doesn't always happen in other areas of my life.

I like things to be neat and tidy, but life doesn't tend to work that way.  It's a constant war against 

chaos, unpredictability, and a lack of control.  A garden that looks great after hours of weeding will have a totally different appearance a week or two later.  Sometimes all the hard work seems like a huge waste of time.  Why bother to remove the weeds, they're just going to come back again.

But a garden that is constantly maintained and cared for will eventually have less weeds coming up.  If those weeds are removed early then they won't be nearly so difficult to remove.  If the soil is mulched and watered, sometimes you can get a huge long grass root out...now there's a natural high!  I have learned that the effort is worth the reward, but it requires commitment and an investment of time and energy (as most worthwhile things do).

I think another reason I love weeding so much is that it gives me an excuse to be outside.  I don't sit still well.  Those jobs people dream of where you get paid to sit around and do nothing would drive me crazy!  I need a purpose, something to keep me occupied.  I like to think I enjoy sitting outside reading a book or lounging in the sun, but after half an hour or so I get restless.  Give me a bed to weed and I'll happily spend hours outside.

Even more so, weeding gives me time to think.  It doesn't take a great deal of concentration to successfully pull up weeds, so my mind is free to wander wherever it so chooses.  With the task at hand in front of me, and being a person who loves a good analogy I often think about what lesson I can learn from the weeds themselves.

So much grass to remove from this bed!

On the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences website I found out what the biological definition of a weed is:

A weed is a plant out of place, not intentionally sown, whose undesirable qualities outweigh its good points.  Some crop plants even can become weeds when they grow where they are not wanted....weeds are troublesome in many ways.  They reduce crop yield by robbing water, light, space, and soil nutrients.  Weeds can produce allelopathic substances that are toxic to crop plants. Weeds often serve as hosts for crop diseases; they also may provide shelter for insects and diseases to overwinter...To plan an effective weed management program, a producer must be able to identify weeds present and understand how weed biology affects where weeds are found and their relative competitiveness.

I have come to believe that weeding a garden has a lot in common with growing in myself.  There are habits that I have cultivated unintentionally which have undesirable qualities.  They may even be useful or good things to do or believe, but grow out of  control or in areas of my life that they are not wanted.  They have reduced the amount of fruit my life has produced my robbing my attention, my skills, my time, and my energy.  They have produced toxic thoughts and have placed me in close proximity to things that are not healthy for my mind, body, and spirit.

When I have identified these things as weeds or unnecessary I can try to remove them from the surface.  If you've ever tried to weed out grass or other plants with lots of roots you will know what I'm talking about.  I can pull the grass up and the flower bed looks great, but there are still heaps of roots below the surface.  In no time at all new grass will spring up.  I remove all those things that look bad on the surface from my life, but I haven't removed the beliefs and attitudes that cause these things to grow in my life and sure enough in a little while they are back again.

If you're lucky, you can find weeding buddies :)

There are a few things that I have found useful in combating the weeds once I have identified them.  The first is digging deep and removing the roots.  This is usually harder work and may require some tools and patience.  Once you have identified a thinking pattern that is the root of an unhealthy behaviour then you can begin to remove it.  Removal is not enough though. The newly weeded area needs to be sown with other plants that you do want to have in your life, or it will easily be overtaken by weeds again.  Replacing an unhealthy habit with a pastime that is beneficial is a great way to prevent those behaviours from re-occurring.  The last piece of successful weeding is maintenance--keeping an eye out for those attitudes before they get out of hand and removing them right away works well.  Covering that area with something that will make the soil healthy (like a mulch) and the weeds from getting light will also help--just like spending time in God's word has helped me to protect my heart.

Here's hoping I'll continue to find time to weed my heart while I'm out in the garden this summer!