Faith as a Turnip Seed

"If ye have faith as a grain of turnip seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." Luke 17:20

OK, OK, it says mustard not turnip but it's small odds because a turnip seed looks exactly like a mustard seed the two of them being very closely related botanically.

I thought about what the turnips had to say as I was in the garden today gathering things for supper. A lightening storm was brewing so I was keen to get the greens gathered and get out of there. I noticed how vigorous the tops of the turnips were and with the intensive gardner's eye chose the one that would best relieve the crowding in the bed. It was wanted to round out the pot of greens so we cut up the bulb and snacked on it while we were cooking. Here was this sizeable vegetable, not the largest in the patch by far, and it had started out as a tiny speck of a seed planted last March, a seed we'd saved from last years turnips when the remnants went to seed.

The ground in which this turnip grew has been nurtured with organic material for sixteen years now. So when I am in the garden here in early June, I see reminders of where I was and what I was doing in March. Someone once defined luck as when opportunity meets preparedness. I guess that about says it. Or else we might refer back to the Writ where we find "Be not decieved, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Gal 6:7)

Ruth Stout, the celebrated proponent of no-till mulch gardening put it a little more earthily: If you plant a good turnip seed properly a turnip is what you will get every single time.

Now, it has been my observation, and I've paid more than passing attention to it, that where we find ourselves in our lives is the sum total of how we have prepared the ground and when and what seeds we have planted. You might not be able today to go down to your garden and pull out half a meal from a turnip hole, but you can plant a tiny turnip seed. Time it for early to late July depending on you latitude and you will get however grand a turnip your soil will yield about the time the first light frosts of fall magically transform the turnip's flavor.

I say you can grow turnips. A more noted authority says nothing shall be impossible unto you. All for the sake of a turnip seed.