Fruit from the Garden

Excitement grew as I thought about growing my own tomatoes again. It had been a while since we had a garden. I remembered how since moving to this hotter climate the tomatoes had produced well into November with a brief slow down for a month around September.  My husband suggested moving the garden to another area of the yard and since we had worked on removing stumps and old lava rock he had found a place he thought would work well.

Instead of tilling the ground he just dug some large holes and planted the tomato and bell pepper plants in some fresh compost. The area was then covered with sawdust to keep down the weeds. We used fertilizer for a while and regular watering and before I knew it there were blooms.

The blooms turned into tomatoes and peppers. It was great watching things grow and eating them. Then the problems started. First the peppers developed some brown spots and didn’t want to mature. Then one day when I came home from work and my husband told me to look into a container. I sheepishly looked and there was a large tobacco worm. He said it was the only one he could see and it had eaten most of the leaves off one tomato plant.

On Sunday after church I went out to tie up the tomato plants, which had spread out so far that I could not walk between them. I saw a large green tobacco worm. Touching squirming critters was not really my thing but I had to do something and do it quickly before it decimated the plant. After seeking advice from an expert, my husband,  I got rubber gloves—not wanting to touch the thing with my fingers—and plucked it off the tomato plant and deposited it into an empty bucket.

As I entered the house feeling accomplished I realized that even though you buy good plants and you care for them other creatures will want to eat them. In order for the plants to continue to bear edible fruit you must care for and pay attention to them. In our walk with God it is the same. If we do not care for our souls the enemy of our soul will creep in and decimate our fruit.  The Word of God, prayer and attention to detail in our everyday lives will keep us from falling prey to the bad worms who just want to eat the very life from us and not allow us to bear fruit.

Enjoy the fruit of your lives and don’t let the enemy take it away or destroy it, so it is not edible. I will be back next week with more.