Preparing Today to Reap Good Fruit Tomorrow

          Rotten, mushy fruit is awful. Firm, unripe fruit is bitter. Finding fruit ripe in the peak of freshness is rare. It stands out and draws you in. Biting into a perfectly, plump, juicy blackberry is yum! However, just planting a blackberry vine doesn’t yield beautiful fruit. It takes cultivating, just like our lives. Reaping good fruit tomorrow requires nurturing fruitfulness today.

That seems impossible with last year’s work still swamping us. Life moves so fast it’s difficult to consider harvest time. Our days are full. We’re shivering through winter, dreaming about spring, yearning for summer with little thought of fall. But, ready or not, harvest is coming.

Pace Yourselves

Winter seems like a good time to hibernate. Prepping gardens can seem as overwhelming as decluttering crammed-full calendars, closets and cabinets.

My first container gardens failed miserably. I had great intentions, little experience and made oodles of mistakes:

• I got overly excited at the garden shows and nurseries and bought more plants than I could handle.
• I grouped plants the way I liked them in almost every galvanized bucket in my collection without considering which plants worked best together.
• I didn’t know about the “thriller, filler, and spiller” technique and was clueless about how to style the spaces.
• I knew nothing about choosing soil or fertilizing.
• I placed sun-loving plants in shade and shade-loving plants in full sun.
• I planted BEFORE the last freeze and didn’t cover the plants.
• I watered when I felt like it.  

Regrettably, these gardens became graveyards before the next season. But, I’m still hopeful. Surely I’m growing in my gardening skills after harvesting bouquets of lessons from my “annual” mistakes.

Get Prepping

Tending life’s gardens is a fulltime job. We can’t skip steps in the preparations. Though our plans may get hindered or put on hold, we have to keep working while we’re waiting.  Dreamy ideas and paper sketches alone don’t produce fruitfulness. We must gather our tools and get our hands in the dirt. Seasonal tasks serve to protect plants, promote growth and produce fruit.

Bad habits produce bad crops and cultivating evil behaviors reaps evil outcomes. The amount of time it takes to prep for a good harvest depends on how bad we neglect or mistreat our gardens.

Start Nurturing

Untended gardens don’t grow well. They require nurturing. Sometimes, it takes trial and error to find the correct nurturing for different plants, which also applies to us. Like plants we’re unique. Some thrive in the shade and others in the sun. Regardless, there are some basic steps that nurture fruitfulness in all of us:

1. Tilling the soil of our hearts and keeping them soft and fertile
2. Digging deep and growing in God’s Word
3. Fertilizing healthy habits
4. Planting seeds of kindness
5. Cultivating productivity in ourselves and others.
6. Weeding strife and stress from our:
   • Spaces
   • Schedules
   • Social media
7. Keeping costs down and production up

Good or bad, we’re known by our fruit. Let’s prep now for a great crop and reap a bountiful harvest.

Bring It Home

How are you preparing for better fruit this year?

Praying for you as we grow together,

Smiles, BRC