I Live In A Weed Nightmare, But I Choose It!

Today's Eggs

      Yes, it is true. Many years my garden gets overwhelmed by weeds, and yet I don't spray anything, ever! Well I take that back, we do spray wasp nests when they are endangering people, but not in the garden. It's not a glorious triumph:^) It's more toleration!
      Years ago I studied about the effects of pest control. Yes, I did go back and read that old book, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. However, it was not what mainly shaped my opinion of pesticides, herbicides, and artificial fertilizers. I studied far more than Ms. Carson's opinion. The basis for my beliefs about organic growing mostly came from simple common sense. I thought, "If something makes a biological organism sick enough to die, won't it make me sick too?". Why would I spray poison on my food? It seems so simple to me, and doesn't require a list of statistics to support it! However, the statistics are there. I'll not list them here, because the point of my discussion is not to prove that organic growing is the right way to go. In my book it is. However, my point is that my life is a fight between me and bugs and weeds, and for the most part, I surrender, at least up to a point. I do want my share, after all:^)
      Life is full of irony:^) My eldest son became a pest control operator. What is an organic momma to do? Life has taught me that we love em, we teach em, we pray for em, and we trust God! My youngest son, seriously cannot see the point either:^)  Some days I want to throw up my hands too. However, I began doing what I do for reasons, both personal, and religious. I look back now and think sometimes that perhaps I didn't explain my reasoning well enough, but more likely is that my children must make their own decisions. I made mine.
      In 1991, I went through a postpartum depression after having my second son. It was a rough time for me. I had lost two babies( yes my reproductive life was full of troubles ) at 23 weeks of pregnancy in a row before him, and the hormonal changes combined with several years of emotional upheaval rather caught up to me. However, it caused me to spend a lot of time in prayer and Bible study. The prayer and Bible study, along with some herbs helped me make it through the challenge. There was always a bit of depression that followed pregnancy with me. With my first child, my parents became concerned, and recommended therapy, which NEVER worked well for me! What they didn't understand, and what I came to understand was that it was mostly a physical change with some emotional repercussions. Ultimately I dealt with it to some extent following the births of each of my children, including my last daughter who died.
     It is an interesting thing to me how stupid people in the last several decades were about hormonally related depression! In the fifties and sixties, this was seen as some sort of personal weakness. Women were shut up in hospitals and retreats, and their children taken away from them. Women who seriously had problems were often ignored totally, and even today we turn our heads in disgust , and throw women in jail who are often suffering from postpartum symptoms, which nobody wants to discuss, and certainly not in court! Hospitals and doctors, hardly ever counsel young women on the potential for the baby blues to turn into a year long mental illness! Years ago, it was like if a woman had emotional problems, she was tainted or stupid or immoral!
   For crying out loud, we can take care of a woman who has Strep throat, but we can't manage to find in ourselves one shred of compassion for a woman struggling with a very physical illness! Sadly, doctors are even worse often than the general public! When I went to my woman doctor, she laughed and told me, "Well at least you are not hearing voices come out of your TV  telling you to kill your children, like this one lady I saw! Here, I'll give you some medication and send you to a psychiatrist.". This was the very last thing I needed to hear! I went out the door, threw the prescription away, and went and found my pastor! Through him, a man, I found what I really needed was God's help, and through my Aunt Alice, I learned what was causing my problem. Once I knew where I stood, I was able to find some herbs to help me, and a close relationship to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ which was the real help I needed, an appointment with the Great Physician, and he never once talked about voices coming out of the TV!
    Well, I guess we must travel in our discussion about the weeds of life(which sometimes come in human form), back to the weeds in the garden. Anyway, after I started to recover from the hormonal changes that beset me following pregnancy it was always like sunrise! For me it was a time of great emotional, spiritual, and mental growth! During the particular experience after my second son, God began talking to me about what he wanted me to do. Why do I homestead? God told me to. Why do I grow organically? God told me to! Why have I tried to feed my family from what I could grow? Because God told me to. I felt and still feel a strong urging from the Lord to grow clean food. I have always had the strong impression that somehow either I, or my children needed this knowledge that I was pursuing!
    Therefore, I battle weeds, and bugs for God. I'd like to say I always do it in the way he wants me to, but the truth is I always feel less effective than I think he wants me to be. I firmly believe he is using this organic life I am leading to his purpose and his glory. I just wish I could live up to it all, be all he wants me to be. I've always felt that he has me here to help train others, particularly my family for some future eventuality. I believe that as poorly as I have managed to do this job he called me to do, he has used it to further our health, and our joy. It certainly has furthered mine.

After all that, now I can talk about what this post is really about:^) Here we get Little Bit Farm ready for the fall gardening season. The first pic( above)  is my tomato garden this year, which as anyone can see suffered from terrible neglect. Can anyone see a tomato plant:^)? I spent much of my summer cooking at camp, going on a mission trip, teaching vacation bible school, and a host of other activities. In the midst of it, our weedeater went out, and then my weedeating sons did too, lol! Next is the garden next to it, which was my spring garden this year. Today we harvested beets out of it. Here you can see the progress on revamping it:

   This method is really effective for working on over weedy ground. Just left the frame, line with cardboard, and fill with dirt, or barn cleanings by the time the seedlings are growing well the cardboard is disintegrated enough for the roots to get through. I will plant greens in that first bed tonight. Everybody have a great day!!!