The No-Till Garden

The dandelion mocks me from the driveway. I am worried about planting the sugar snap seeds without tilling the ground. The bright yellow flower laughs at my lack of faith.

Nick always tilled the ground before planting. I continued the practice. After we took down the garden fence and removed the landscaped timbers in the fall, our garden reverted to yard each winter. Each spring, we tilled the garden to prepare it for seeds and plants.

This past fall, I left the fence and timbers in place. I pulled the old plants and weeds and covered them with cardboard. My garden stayed garden and not yard. Theoretically, I do not need to till.

Tilling reminds me to look for the hard-packed place in my life, the places where I am set in my ways and resistant to change. Tilling reminds me to uproot the worldly ways that have crept into my life; to make room for the seeds God is planting. Tilling reminds me that traumatic upheaval may be God’s way of preparing me for growth.

See now, I am for you; I will turn to you, and you will be tilled and sown. Ezekiel 36:9.

No-till gardens are now in vogue. If I don’t let my garden revert to yard, I shouldn’t need to till in the spring. The argument is that tilling disrupts the beneficial activity in the soil as well as the detrimental (weeds).

Could it be laziness in disguise?

Can I keep my garden weed-free and ready for seed without major upheavals?

Can I keep my life focused on God and ready for His call without major upheavals?

I pull back the cardboard and peek. The soil is loose, dark, and weed-free. Cardboard and dead grasses have kept new grasses and weeds from growing. My days of tilling may be over.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 3:14-15.

Perhaps, if I can continue to keep my garden weed-free and ready, I will not need to go through the arduous effort of tilling. Perhaps, if I stay in God’s word and continually apply it to my life, I will not need major upheavals in my life to follow Him.

My plan is to cut out rows in the cardboard for the sugar snap seeds. Give those seeds air and sunlight to grow; deny air and sunlight to the weeds I don’t want to grow.

Planting those seeds is the important thing. Because making my space weed-free does not make it a garden. What makes my space a garden is not what it doesn’t grow, but what it does. A garden produces fruit.

You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. John 15:16.

As proud as I may be of eliminating weeds from my garden and obvious sins from my life, a weed-free space is not a garden. A sin-free life is not a life of faith. A faithful life produces fruit.

I am not going to till this year. I will put those seeds in the ground which I prepared for them last year. I am trusting God to grow the fruit.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Galatians 5:22.

The dandelion nods her yellow head in agreement.