In the spring of 2023, my hubby and I planted some sweet potato vines that I picked up at Lowes. I knew absolutely nothing about growing sweet potatoes. We picked one of our raised beds to plant them in and hoped for the best. The vines spread out, but our trusty guide, the internet, said that it wouldn’t be time to harvest them until the fall.
The tricky thing about potatoes is they grow underground, so you really don’t know what’s going on. We waited patiently to harvest them, but unfortunately, some deer beat us to it. When we went to check on them one day, the vines had been eaten, the dirt was dug up and there was nothing left but six scrawny potatoes.
I wrapped them in some newspaper to cure them, put them in the barn and forgot about them. When I found them the following spring, they had little sprouts on them. I was going to toss them, but my hubby assured me that the sprouts were even better to plant than the vines. We picked a different bed; he took out his pocket knife and cut off each little sprout and we planted them.
We had finally installed a fence to keep the deer out and the vines went wild. I had to cut them several times to keep them from taking over the garden. When all of the other vegetables were done for the season, those vines kept growing into the fall. I kept trimming them and waiting for them to turn yellow to harvest them.
Some time after my hubby passed that October, I was mindlessly wandering through the garden. When I got to the bed of sweet potatoes, I found the vines were still green, but upon closer inspection, I could see a potato just grazing the surface. I reached in and gently dug it out.
I was shocked to find a large, fully formed, sweet potato. I began to feel around the bed and to my surprise, found many more. I dug a few and then went to show my Daddy. He excitedly got a hoe and dug more. In the end, we probably had 50 or so sweet potatoes that all came from those shriveled up few that the deer left behind.
Needless to say, they were the best sweet potatoes any of us could remember eating. We shared them with friends. We ate them for Thanksgiving. We ate them for Christmas and we still had more
I knew even then, there was a lesson in the amazing bounty that came from what seemed like useless trash that my hubby saw potential in planting. There was also a faith lesson in trusting that growth is going on even when you can’t see it. But, the most significant lesson for me was that he was no longer here, yet what he planted was still feeding us and I knew in a larger sense, it always would.
It was a beautiful reminder that we are all in the seed planting business. While we often don’t get to see the fruit of many of the seeds we plant, we can rest assured that in God’s hands nothing is wasted and sometimes what we plant will even lead to a bounty that will feed many generations to come. After all, all things are possible with God.
Sometimes I need reminding. Perhaps you do too.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂