Seasonal tasks

On an allotment no-one tells you what to do.  No bosses, no exam deadlines, no worries.  The fruit and veg. follow their seasonal rhythms and as you attune yourself to them the next task becomes obvious.  Our summer raspberries fruited and flourished early, so it was time to cut down old canes as the new ones took their place.  Spinach, a biennial, left unattended in hot weather eventually bolted and flowered.  Its deep roots come out, with a tug, and into the raised bed went new seed.  I have sown autumn carrots and winter cabbages.  The blackberries sent out next year's growth and I will trim them to encourage them to branch along the hedge.  This sowing and growing, reaping and digging becomes a pattern of life.

Weeds are continual, of course.  After the showers, they spring up; persistent ones - sow thistles, buttercups, mare's tail; pretty ones that still need to come out - miniature pink and white convolvulus and speedwell; edible ones that I have never dared try - fat hen, nettles. 

Despite the disorderly season with its spring drought we have begun to harvest cabbage, carrots, courgettes and can see the orderly growth of our winter larder: squashes, maincrop potatoes, jerusalem artichokes, leeks. 

In my gratitude I reflect on Daniel 2:20 and 21.  I do not understand the national and international events of our era, but I am beginning to sense how the seasons play themselves out year by year.  God orchestrates both. 

"Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever,
to whom belong wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons;
he removes kings and sets up kings;
he gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding;
he reveals deep and mysterious things;
he knows what is in the darkness,
and the light dwells with him."