I recently picked up an old copy of a book that is a staple in the world of gardening: Carrots Love Tomatoes. Originally published in 1975, the author has since passed but her wisdom is still wholly applicable.1
Take, for instance, this small paragraph:
Carrots are good to grow with tomatoes — also with leaf lettuce, chives, onions, leeks, radishes, rosemary, and sage. They have a pronounced dislike for dill. Carrot roots themselves contain an exudate beneficial to the growth of peas.
Too often, I can be an eager, impatient gardener. I want to get those beans planted in the ground now! I want to reap the benefits of the lettuce grown from seed stat! I want to pickle and can, sauté and boil, like yesterday, because I want it and I want it now!
In my desire to see and feel and taste results now, I neglect to think about what might be best for future growth.
For some gardeners, this is where companion planting (which is, indeed, the theme of the aforementioned book) comes into play. If tomatoes don’t like brassicas, then don’t nestle them in between a bunch of broccoli and kale. If carrots don’t like dill, save that herb for pickling (and plant it near some cabbage instead, as the book later suggests).
When we first moved into the house we now call home, I eagerly put my novice gardening passion to use. I drew designs for raised garden beds, as I lay sick in bed with Covid. I started to build some of those raised beds a month or two later, when my energy returned. At that point in time — which wasn’t more than a couple years ago, mind you — I hadn’t yet discovered the magic of growing food by seed.
Instead, I picked up seedlings whenever I could: at the grocery store, the hardware store, and from Buy Nothing groups. From neighbors, from Home Depot, and from Costco alike.
Gardening was quickly becoming a rather expensive habit.
At one point, I found a couple of tomato seedlings at the grocery store. Sungold or Black Krim, Dirty Girl or Green Zebra,2 I don’t remember the varietal. But I do remember planting both of the seedlings beside a couple of collard greens and watching them wilt within a week or two.
“There’s something wrong with your tomatoes!” I said to the store manager. “They died! They must have a disease, because none of the other tomatoes are dying in my backyard. It’s only your tomatoes!”
Only later did I realize my mistake: brassicas.
Tomatoes don’t like to share a bed with anything in the brassica family. There are other vegetables they’d much rather cozy up and share a bed with.
And there are, as it turns out, a thousand different ways I could run with this piece of writing. But for the sake of simplicity, I’ll lean into themes of companionship particularly when it comes to vocation.3
Were you and I to sit down over a cup of coffee, I’d probably tell you that I love writing. I call myself a writer. I am a writer. Perhaps this comes as no surprise, seeing as you’re reading this post right now.
But writing is not necessarily how I pay the bills or how I spend my time during the week. Instead, I wear a few different hats: I am a writer. I am a minister. I am a nonprofit communications consultant. Sure, I wear a myriad of hats because the mortgage deems it necessary, but I also wear these hats because they act as companions to one another.
Try as I might to “just write” or “just be a writer” during the week, and the solitary nature of the occupation leaves me desirous of human interaction. I need time with people to flourish — the balance that can only come when time with other humans and time with all the thoughts rumbling around inside my head honored in equal measure. I need time for creativity and time to see the results of tangible, measurable actions that comes with quarterly giving campaigns or grant writing applications in the nonprofit world.
I need this balance because it helps me flourish, the many parts of myself honored and given room to grow along the way.4
And sometimes, often times, I feel like I am only learning that I need this balance because I have lacked this balance in previous jobs. Sometimes we learn what we need only because we’re not getting it: even if it takes time to find a good fit and the need to wait proves longer than we see fit, we learn what and how and who we should be best nestled in between in the (vocational) beds we cozy up in.
Because, companion planting? It’s a thing, applicable in backyard urban garden beds and perhaps in our work lives as well.5
You think?6
These are four of my favorite tomato varietals, I’ll have you know.
Could I lean into companionship in marriage, partnership or relationships? Absolutely. But that’s not where I’m going today and that’s okay.
At this point, it’s probably helpful to remind all of us of Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak.
I say this with all awareness of my privilege, as my education and my experience allow me to pick and choose my work more freely. My husband is also fully a partner in every sense of the word: he supports my creative endeavors, including the financial limitations that often accompany these dreams. The list goes on.
Join the conversation! Kindly “like” this post or leave a comment on Substack if you have something to add.
This resonates deeply in my vocations too of writer and pastor and mother. Thank you!