Joe Aalbue- Growing Together

HI from Vicarage Farm…

     I took a Washington State University extension class on tree grafting yesterday…and grafted my first apple scion to an apple rootstock.  It was a revelation—in many ways.  It also caused me to reflect on life in the garden.

     In June, I turn 70.  Who would have thought it possible?!  And, here I am planning tree-grafting projects for the next couple of years.  Now, a scion will not produce its first fruit for at least 4 years and who is to guarantee that I will be alive then?  (I plan on it, but the best laid plans…)

     The whole grafting process reminds me of a quote attributed to Martin Luther: “If I knew that tomorrow was the end of the world, I would plant an apple tree today!”  

     What I did yesterday—and will do during the coming years—is not about me seeing the fruits of my labors, but about living my life in faith and in hope and in confidence.  I won’t know if the graft ‘takes’ for months.  I won’t know if the grafted wood will produce fruit for years.  I don’t even know—when I am dead and gone—whether the apple tree will survive or be cut down to make room for yet more closely built homes with no room for lawns…much less trees!

     Does it mean don’t graft or plan or labor for distant goals?  No!  In most cases we will not see the fruits of our labors….or pick the apples we so carefully grafted.  But we don’t do our work for immediate results, recognition, or gratification.  We do our work faithfully as an affirmation of life and as a participation in the renewal of creation.  

     I read a book a while back on a study of aging in which a husband told lovingly of his elderly wife with a comforter around her huddled in her recliner with a seed catalogue.  She was planning her summer garden even as she knew she would not be alive to even sow the first seeds.

     I want to be like her!

Happy Gardening,

Joe