BeautyRevealed | The Blog of Melissa J. Dillon

This picture was taken 3 weeks ago before the wedding… now, my garden is completely out of control. Everything is HUGE and running amuck in my little garden plot. One reason is that we’ve been so busy this summer. But the main reason is that I can’t stomach food very well in the past month. Nothing sounds good to me, and I feel ill after eating anything. So nothing is being picked from my garden, and it just grows and grows. And it’s going a little wild at the moment. At least I know that it is a great spot for a garden… it gets lots of sun there. I pulled up an onion today ~ it’s amazing how fragrant it is compared to the ones I buy in the grocery store. Gardening is in my blood now… loving the process of watching it all grow. Now I just need to learn how to can so it won’t all spoil!! Anyone else have luck with their gardens?

“Just now the lilac is in bloom, all before my little room.” 

- Rupert Brooke

Oh, I wish you could smell them! They are simply heavenly. We have a long lilac hedge separating our backyard from the alleyway… I wish I could take credit, but these bushes have been around for over 50 years. They weren’t really taken care of by the previous owners, so it took a lot of thinning out and pruning to get them to bush out like they should. And only two years later, we are enjoying hundreds of gorgeous lilacs. I wish they lasted all summer, but I’ll enjoy them while I can. I love to make bouquets for every room in the house and it makes the whole house smell wonderful. They remind me so much of my childhood… my mom had lilac bushes at our house in town, and the scent brings me back to barefoot summer days in the backyard. 

For those of you who live close by, come on over and grab an armful of lilacs anytime. And make sure you stop in for a glass of iced tea. Hope to see you soon!

“The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses.”

- Hannah Rion

This will be my first little garden… ever. Last summer my husband and my father helped me make a little garden plot behind the garage. It was unused space and it gets lots of sun all day long, so it was perfect. I’ve been pulling up weeds all weekend long in preparation for planting in a couple of weeks (Minnesota gardens are always way behind!) I know that so far it’s just a plot of dirt, but I am already finding so much satisfaction in spending hours tending to my little garden. Solitude recharges my batteries. It nourishes my soul. This morning it was so quiet and peaceful except for a few singing birds and cooing doves, and I just drank in the serenity of it all. The warm sun on my back… dirty fingers and toes… the smell of the rich soil… it was heaven on earth. And such satisfaction! Who would have known that pulling weeds could be so gratifying? And I haven’t even planted anything yet… ha! I’m sunburned and tired, but I can already tell I’m going to love gardening. I really do hope I have a green thumb, though, since I’ve never tried this before. I’m also wanting to learn how to can vegetables and dry my own herbs this fall. And I am looking forward to wonderful organic produce while saving money. 

Susan Branch has a page in her Summer Book about her kitchen garden. I love the idea of having a little picket fence around the garden with a border of flowers. And a lovely floppy garden hat so I don’t burn my nose like I did today! 

As I was pulling weeds I had a lot of thinking time. Tending a garden reminds me a lot of how necessary it is to tend to our hearts and our spiritual life. The little weeds that pop up in our minds and hearts can so easily take over when we don’t do something about them right away. If we let them continue to grow there, they are so much harder to pull out then when they are small. Sometimes it can be exhausting to continually “weed out” the sins, snares, things of this world, etc. But the more we weed them out, the less they return. Clearing out the those ugly weeds is so necessary to our spiritual walk… because the longer they stay, the deeper their roots go and the harder it is to uproot those pesky things. And they begin to choke out the beautiful and fruitful things in our lives. It’s so important to watch over the affairs and thoughts our hearts. Just a few “weedy” thoughts for today! 

“Your soul shall be like a well-watered garden” (Jeremiah 31:12).