I'm Cultivating Something

“So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” 1 Corinthians 3:8

I bought myself a wonder product on Tuesday and I have to tell you about it.

It is an electric cultivator.

Last year, I tried borrowing my neighbor’s tillers for my tilling needs and his are gas-powered, hard to start and emit noxious fumes that almost killed me. Oh, and they seem to outweigh me. They were terribly heavy and seemed to have a mind of their own.

After purchasing an electric leaf blower in December (read about my debacle here), I decided that electric is my friend over gas-powered anything in the lawn tool department. I’m sure it is greener or something, but for me, the #1 reason I would choose electric over gas any day is…

I can start it!

You push a button.

Even I can do that!

Pulling the cord seventy five times after priming the thing and then flooding it and having to pull the cord another seventy five times makes my arm hurt. It seems like exercise. And we all know how I feel about exercise. At least any exercise involving me. I’m sure it is good for OTHER people.

So I got the electric cultivator on Tuesday, screwed on the handle, hooked up the extension cord, pushed the button and started cultivating. I’m pretty sure I did just as good a job with my new friend as I did with the beasts of burden I borrowed last year. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t go quite as deep, but I’m pretty sure that a garden like mine (where it is survival of the fittest for the most part) won't care.

I tilled the whole thing up in about thirty minutes (my garden area is pretty small). I even ran the thing through a section that didn’t get weeded much (OK, at all) last year and had a gazillion strands of bermuda grass. Yes, it bogged down a little, but it kept going and all the bermuda strands eventually looked like a giant rolling hairball stuck on the tines. I began to rethink my weeding strategy when I realized that I had to clean all that out, but guess what? I just pulled out a pin, took the tines off, separated them and stuck them back on, clean as a whistle.

Ok, a whistle that had been rolled through the dirt, but was at least grass free. E-A-S-Y!!

In other words, I LOVE my new electric cultivator, especially after having experienced the “other side” last year. I’m thinking it will be good for my flowerbeds too and I have high hopes of making the children a small corn maze with it in the front yard once the weather warms up a little more.

I have dreams of broccoli and peas and tomatoes and cucumbers, and maybe, just maybe, my little cultivator will help them put their roots down a little better than they would have otherwise.

I know my arms are already happy!

Here’s wishing you spring thoughts and garden dreams today!

“But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown.” Matthew 13:23