Gardening: Day One

Today we worked in the garden as a family. That was actually fun!

My husband tilled up the ground and then we set to work with rakes to get the weeds and clumps out.

This is my husband's first year to help much with the garden, but he commented, "This is a lot of work, isn't it?"

Yes, it is a lot of work. But it felt great to get outside with something meaningful to do. It felt great to work the ground. And it felt great to have my children volunteering to help with real work.

My children are one of the reasons I decided to garden again this year. I want them to know how to garden when they leave home. It's a useful skill to know. It's healthy. And it's hard work.

I want them to know that food doesn't originally come in the pretty packaging from the store. Someone has to work - and usually work hard - to get that food to our table. It makes me appreciate my food a lot more!

We had an interesting conversation while we were getting all those weed roots out of the garden plot today. When my husband commented that this was hard work, we were reminded that God told Adam he would get his food by the "sweat of his brow." I'm sure there were no weeds in the Garden of Eden - before Adam and Eve sinned. Wouldn't that be nice gardening?

Well, we have half the garden raked. Tomorrow is another day!