The Old Has Gone

This year my family is preparing for our first year of square foot gardening. Last year, it went okay. We planted asparagus, which we’ll need to wait another year to harvest. We planted cucumbers, watermelons, peas, all kinds of herbs, and of course tomatoes. This year we have a different plan.

A few weeks ago, my mom and I did our first mix of compost, peat moss, and vermiculite, each of which is supposed to benefit the plant by holding water or preparing the soil. I’m still learning.

Last year, we pulled weeds and tilled the ground in preparation, but we were still pulling weeds all summer. We had just moved in, and the garden had been unused for some time. Our plants were producing, but we did not harvest nearly as much as we had hoped. On top of that, we had a weird-smelling pile of odds and ends—lettuce heads, carrot tops, egg shells—in the corner of the garden.

We recently learned that the old soil must go completely, including the old compost that still had weed seeds mixed in. It did not matter how much we fed, tilled, or carefully planted or how much fertilizer we added. The soil was old and needed to be replaced for our vegetables to be healthy and yield to their full potential.

I could not help but think about how in our lives the old soil must go. God doesn’t want to make me into a better person—feeding what is already there—but a new person. I think of 2 Corinthians 5:17. The old has gone; the new has come. Not the improved but the new.

Our garden soil had years’ worth of weeds and needed to be replaced. It didn’t matter how much we weeded; the seeds were still in the soil. We could not grow healthy plants and good fruit in old soil. Likewise, I have to prepare my soil, my heart, putting off the old man and putting on the new, created to be like God in righteousness (Eph. 4:24). The old must go for the new to come.