Bearing Vegetables

This past weekend ended the flower and garden season at our house. I took out all the pumpkin and watermelon vines with the exception of a couple watermelon which are making a final effort to get up to size in our cool fall weather.

So far the harvest has netted three watermelons and thirteen pumpkins. Not bad considering I planted them just to fill in some empty space out in the front flowerbed. They ended up going crazy, climbing over the retaining wall and taking over a portion of our yard and half the steps leading to our front door. At first I tried to point the vines back into the garden but they were persistant in their escape attempts and ended up winning that war.

We all enjoyed watching our crop grow. Pulling into the driveway we were greeted each time by a couple good sized watermelons that I was sure would one day mysteriously disappear- but they never did and instead ended up being fine additions to our Sunday evening family dinners. Some days it seemed as if you could see them growing they grew so fast.

The pumpkins grew fast as well and they came in all shapes and sizes. We had long tall pumpkins and perfectly round pumpkins. Some turned orange early, way back in mid September, and some are still a bit green. Our last and biggest pumpkin (about the size of a basketball) is on the steps trying to ripen even as you read this.

In addition we had some radishes, jalepenos and tomatoes. The petunias and marigolds bloomed brightly all summer and fall as did a couple hanging plants I don't know the names of. All in all it was a very successful growing season at our house unless you wonder about my lawn - that is another story itself.

Bearing vegetables, that's what we all need to be doing. I think bearing fruit gets far to much credit. Trees bear fruit. The hard work of bearing vegetables is done at or below ground level. It's a ground war of sorts against bugs and rabbits and birds. We lost some tomatoes, even a pumpkin to bugs. But our plants pressed on and we harvested a great crop.

Of course I'm going to encourage you to bear vegetables of a different sort. To keep working to climb out of the retaining walls of your life and bloom and well, bear vegetables that, with the help of our Gardner, the Holy Spirit, bring Life to others. Bearing vegetables, I like the sound of that. Next time you hear some child being told to eat their vegetables think of your role in sharing God's Good News. See you vegetable producers Sunday in church.

Blest Regards,
kp

OK, maybe you've read this far and have been screaming all along that pumpkins and watermelons are fruits - and that would be correct except this fact ruins my blog so let's just pretend that via a proclaimation I order they are now vegetables as I think they rightly should be. The story now once again makes sense except to those of you who are fruit radicals and will not accept any recatagorization that reduces fruit numbers. Fruity people can be that way. I still call on everyone to bear vegetables! : ) kp