Garden Song

This spring I felt the urge to grow some vegetables. We live in a city centre flat with no land, but the flower bed in front of our ground floor flat was bare and looking sad. So we started planting gooseberries, onions, carrots, and beetroots. A few weeks later, when all leaves started to spring and looking promising, the building management, Riverside, told us to pack them up.

I did not want to go down without a fight. My (angry) statement can be found in this blog. I moved some of the vegetables to pots, gooseberry to a barrel, and put up a sign saying, “We do you no harm, why do you want to kill us?” I also sent my statement to a Councillor and to our local neighbourhood forum.

Two months passed, I thought the anti-green management has decided to leave us alone and let us grow these beautiful organic vegetables. Then one evening after work I found new bushes had been planted in the flower bed. Our vegetables were moved to little pots around the flower bed. I think this is one bad news and a little good news. While the evil Riverside building management wanted to kill all our plants, I think the gardeners who were ordered to execute did not have the heart to kill them all.

After all, plants are also God’s creatures. There is something about watching seeds grow into healthy vegetables that brings peace and joy into our hearts. As I was thinking about my little “vegetable garden”, I found this song written by David Mallett and sung by John Denver http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3FkaN0HQgs.

I think this song reflects the good feeling when we tend to our garden.

Inch by inch, row by row

Gonna make this garden grow

All it takes is a rake and a hoe

And a piece of fertile ground.

Inch by inch, row by row

Someone bless these seeds I sow

Someone warm them from below

Till the rain comes tumblin' down

Pullin' weeds and pickin' stones

Man is made of dreams and bones

Feel the need to grow my own

'Cause the time is close at hand

Rainful rain, sun and rain

Find my way in nature's chain

Tune my body and my brain

To the music from the land

Plant your rows straight and long

Temper them with prayer and song

Mother Earth will make you strong

If you give her love and care

Old crow watchin' hungrily

From his perch in yonder tree

In my garden I'm as free

As that feathered thief up there.