Swimming In Produce

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I saw this gorgeous garden at a winery. I want my yard to look like that.

I’m regarding 2015 as a difficult gardening year. Sow bugs are devouring the roots of my plants and slowing my yield. I’m not getting a enough green beans or peppers or tomatoes to suit me.

And yet every time I go out to pick, I come back with a basket overflowing with food:

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But I’m not happy with my tomatoes this year; I’m really not.

There’s a great metaphor in this story. It’s about the Judean date palm trees, a tree from the ancient world that was once plentiful. It’s even mentioned in the Bible. (“The righteous himself will blossom forth as a palm tree does.” Psalm 92)

The tree has been extinct for thousands of years. Then they discovered some of the tree’s seeds in the 1960s during the excavations of Herod the Great’s palace in Israel. In 2005 they decided to plant some of the seeds. One seed grew into a tree.

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That there is a 1,300-year-old plant.