Train a zucchini in the way that it should grow...
(And a thought or two on Hillsong & the Duggars)
On Saturday morning, I walked into the garden after having been away from it (on blessed, glorious vacation) for eight days.
And the zucchini had exploded.
I know this is what’s supposed to happen with zucchini, and does often, usually happen with zucchini, but last year, I didn’t have enough pollinators in the garden and planted the zucchini in a corner without a whole lot of sun. As it goes, last year’s harvest yielded two or three zucchinis total.
Even though we had a really rainy spring and winter, and late spring has been slow to see the sun, I planted this year’s zucchini seedling in one of the sunniest spots. Then, I planted another one next to it, because I heard it needed a buddy. Two tomatoes and a couple of sunflowers later, I refrained from planting anything else in the bed and hoped that everything would get along just fine.
And y’all, everything got along more than fine — so much so that I couldn’t see the soil through the jungle of zucchini and tomato leaves when I got home from vacation.
Yesterday, I dug through the leaves to pick a couple of zucchinis for lunch and a few to leave out front for the neighbors. But then I began to wonder if the novice, albeit zealous, gardener within me had gotten it wrong.
Was I doing the rest of the garden bed a disservice by not chopping off some of the leaves and training it upwards? Could I still teach it to grow towards the sky, or had I made the grave mistake of planting too much in too small a space, and it was already too late?
So, I did what I do when I don’t know the answer to something: I Googled it.
Lo and behold, it was not too late to train the zucchini. You chop the bottom leaves, underneath the fruit, leaving the top leaves to canopy the plant. You stick a stake (or in our case, extra pieces of trellis that the boys have been using for jousting purposes) near the base, then tie the plant to the stake, a little bit at a time.
You train a zucchini in the way that it should grow, watching as it reaches toward the sky, its base as naked as a dog who just got a summer shave.
Of course, the phrase “train a zucchini in the way that it should grow” is eerily similar to a phrase I’ve long heard touted in the church: “Train a child in the way that he should grow,” a verse from the Bible often touted as a wayward warning to parents.
As of late, two popular documentaries are making waves across digital streaming platforms: The Secrets of Hillsong on Hulu and Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets on Amazon. There is so much to say about both of these series, but seeing as I’ve got one episode left to watch of the former and haven’t yet started the latter, I’ll refrain from commentary for now.
Except for this lone fact: both of the documentaries are digging up the histories of that which has long been buried, pushed under the rug, unknown.
It’s leading some folks to question and to ask why, especially when it comes to their own histories with spirituality and religion. For those of us who grew up under the banner of white evangelicalism (or under the umbrella of more conservative Christian theologies), an invitation exists to excavate that which has always been there, even if we’ve been largely unaware — to unearth, perhaps, beliefs and phrases and understandings that some of us have never had to wrestle with before.
It’s almost like we’re looking at the garden bed and seeing the explosion of zucchini and tomato plants for the very first time. Leaning in, we realize this might not be the healthiest way to tend a garden, so we trim and tie, pluck and pinch one weary episode or branch or leaf at a time.
We’re training up a zucchini in the way that it should grow, even if it means a poke or two in the process.
Now, tell me all the things: Do you grow your zucchini vertically? Does growing vertical zucchini also remind of you ill-touted Christian phrases? And what say you of the two new documentaries? Ready, go!
just be careful with Zucchini! I lost one under the leaves one year and it grew to 10 lbs! I tried to give it away, but no one wanted it! And, besides you couldn't leave your car windows open without getting your seats filled with zucchini in the summer in South Dakota.