What is summer to you? Does it taste like watermelon and smell like sunscreen? For gardeners, summer smells like warm earth and tastes of home-grown tomatoes bursting with tangy sweetness. It also means a sweaty, daily nettle with vicious villains, like squash bugs and weeds. When I first planted my backyard garden, I chose the “no dig” method—layering cardboard and compost right over our weeds.
I hauled in wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow until our small patch of earth was no longer a snarled mess, but an unmistakable garden plot, ready for planting. It was exhausting work, but each shovelful brimmed with the promise of homegrown vegetables, and that vision drove me on. I naively believed the no-dig promise that the cardboard and mulch would be enough to smother the weed seeds lurking below.
It was around this time that my daughter received her first Confession, which meant that I found myself coaxing and cajoling a fearful and anxious 8-year-old to our local parish for her second Confession, which held none of the excitement and glamour of the first to obscure the objectively nerve-wracking nature of bearing your weaknesses to a total stranger.
I couldn’t really blame her for her reluctance; I am an adult convert, and 15 years later, I feel the same aversion when dragging myself to Confession. Shame spills over into hot tears, and I berate myself for failing to avoid those same sins that land me in Confession week after week. When will I stop needing Confession? I ask myself in exasperation.
It is at this moment that a tiny drop of wisdom finally bubbles over from my head, soaking into my heart. I pushed open the gate to our back garden in July after about a month of neglect to find my once pristine vegetable beds entirely