Allotmenteering
Ian Revie
Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing their sheaves with him.
Psalm 126:6
Joy and I have the pleasure of managing an allotment which brings with it some brief pleasures but also a lot of hard graft. It’s a great place to get away from the routine of work and know that the produce we grow is directly related to the effort and diligence that we put in, aside from weather, animals and dreaded weeds - a skill or punishment that we call ‘allotmenteering’ - a very British pastime.
We are now seeing fruit beginning to form from a beautiful spring blossom, and vegetables beginning to grow from painstaking preparation. Allotmenteering has a wonderful rhythm to it - like the earth’s heart beating (slowly): we prepare early-winter by feeding the soil and pruning back the fruit trees and bushes in the expectation of spring growth; we prepare the soil and protect the fruit bushes, early in spring, and then sow seeds in expectation.
This year we had thought that some of our vegetables were not growing - we couldn't see them for weeds - we knew we had fed and watered the soil, and we could see that the weeds were growing, so our preparation appeared to be good. In a moment of calm, I was thinking about God as a great allotmenteer and how the Bible talks about His character as a gardener - some of my favourites are:
Genesis 8:22 affirms the natural order of seedtime and harvest, as well as the cyclical nature of seasons: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
Psalm 126:5 emphasises the joy of seeing the harvest of our efforts, even after initial hardship or uncertainty: ‘those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy’.
John 15:1-2 Jesus uses the metaphor of a vine and a gardener to describe God's role in nurturing believers, cutting off unproductive branches and pruning those that bear fruit to increase their fruitfulness: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful”.
Ecclesiastes 11:6 encourages diligence in planting, suggesting that we shouldn’t be discouraged by the uncertainty of outcome but should consistently ‘sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well’.
All these teach me the importance of my actions, choices, and faith. We had a choice to feed and prepare the soil, to prune fruit trees & bushes, to leave our weeds or clear them. When we follow the natural rhythm, we expect to reap good quality produce.
We did clear the weeds in the end, very carefully, and found very fine young vegetables growing that will need our diligence in watering, and I expect a continued clearance of surrounding weeds until they are strong and ready for eating.
I encourage you to take time in God’s allotment and look at His creation and listen to what He is saying to you.
