Looking Good! ...And Not so Good

Woohoo!

 Our first 'Earlies'. We had them over the weekend, and they were delicious.

And our first Romanesco. I don't remember them growing this quickly when we planted them two years ago, but they're ready to eat, so out of the ground they had to come.

I'm planning on planting some more from seed: if they have this quick a turnaround, we ought to have another crop of them by the time the other brassica plants are ready. There's certainly no sign of cauliflower or broccoli being ready.

 Last week, these rows looked like this.

 Have a look at the first row...

... and all four rows now! They look really pathetic, don't they?

From this...

...to this.

They are turnips (swedes). Despite the fact that they all looked lovely in the photos showing full rows, we'd have had no 'fruit for our labour' had we left them looking this way. The plants had to be thinned, to allow proper growth. I was thinking of Job when I was thinning them the other day. Initially, everything looked to be well with him: he was rich, he had been blessed with a family of ten, and he was known in his community as a wise and blessed man.

But God refined Job, and I was thinking when I was thinning the turnip seedlings that this is how poor Job must have looked to his friends and to the members of his community while God was doing the refining. The new rows of turnip seedlings look so pathetic - much less attractive that the full rows looked only a few days ago. But without this thinning, we'd never have seen growth. The seedlings would have fought each other for space, and we'd never have had a single turnip on our table. 

Sometimes, when God is refining one of His own, their lives may look pathetic to us. Where they've come to may cause us no envy whatsoever. But maybe God is refining them so they will bring forth fruit in His time.

Maybe we'll have to go through periods of refining too. They will not be pleasant, but we pray that we'd bring forth fruit to God's glory in the end too.

 Our onions were in desperate need of weeding too.

And now they look much better too.

The plot is so rewarding, but it's back-breaking work. There just is no way around that. It is hard work. But good work.

Today, I'm linking up with Homestead Revival's bloghop.