Some call it a plant some a tree, but all that I care is that they are tomatoes. In June I purchased six seedlings from Walmart. You probably know those black, rectangular plastic squares that have compartments for six small plants? Well, they stayed in that home for three weeks or so before I found enough dirt to settle them down, but I watered them faithfully and they remained alive in the seedling square. The first one found a home next to some lilies, but pretty soon I could not tell where it was and I had to water the entire area.
The second was placed in a shallow hole next to the fence. The hole was dug with a spoon as I had no planting tools; they had been packed up after the move. Like its predecessor, I soon could not recognize the plant as the weeds that sprung up mimicked the waves on the edge of the leaves of the tomato plant. Some time later, I found it and marked its location, so I was able to water it regularly and even feed it some fertilizer.
After some much coveted soil was brought in, I filled two large planters with the rich, chernozem earth and placed two plants each in the pots. These I had no problems finding. Two weeks later, the plants of one pot were 18 inches tall.
“Hmm,” I wondered aloud, “why does the second pot, under the same conditions and soil, grow plants only eleven inches tall?”
I doubled the water on the second pot but the stunted plants remain, well, stunted. Meanwhile the plants in the first were shooting out yellow flowers. In a couple weeks there would be tiny green fruit.
Passing next to the pots today on my way to the garage, I noticed something I had not paid attention to before. Soft green leaves covered the entire surface of the soil in the second pot.
I had a eureka moment. WEEDS! No wonder why the little tomato trees could not respond to the fertilizer and water. Those greedy weeds sucked the nutrients intended for the plants, and was slowly suffocating the plants’ ability to bear fruit. No yellow flowers could bud, so no harvest could be produced.
In a flash, the Holy Spirit downloaded the parallel of things that rob our growth in the spiritual. So as I pulled out the weeds from the pot, I examined my own heart.
How wonderful it is to see God in the trivialities of life. Satisfied with my lesson, I now have to try and scrape dirt from under my gel nails.
Tomato Trees
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