Poor Zucchini: All Tied Up and Nowhere to Grow

I like zucchini. Really.

--To eat it, that is. So I grow it.

But I don’t like growing it.

Zucchini is a stubborn plant. It grows where it wants and how it wants with no regard for anything in its path.

And it has prickles. Sharp prickles. If it had a mind it would own the garden plot, thank you and don’t step on my stems on your way out.

And the plant makes it difficult to avoid stepping on those stems because it tends to grow into every walk space, putting down roots each time the vine makes contact with the soil. This would be a great survival tactic for the zucchini if it weren’t for the dreaded Squash Vine Borer that resides in Virginia. The places the vine contacts the ground serves to help the S.V.B. gain a tooth hold. Once in, it continues to bore up the stem, eventually destroying the proud Queen of the garden. The dark green leaves grow a waxy gray cast. Then they wilt. And the vine rots.

I have tried poisoning the S.V.Bs, and poisoned myself along with them.

They say one can control the S.V.B.s by gently slitting the vine and pulling the little grubby things out. Aside from distaste for slimy grubs, did I mention those prickles? They hurt. A lot. It seemed hopeless.

But one way to take control of zucchinis is to make them grow vertically up a pole rather then run along the ground. This way, the garden plants remain safe from a zucchini coupe. It also provides some protection for the vines from the SVB because they contact the ground in one place rather than many.

The zucchinis hate it. I tie them up to the pole with pretty green ties. As soon as I turn away, the plant begins to stage its rebellion. Instead of growing upright, it turns back down over the tie right towards the ground so that it can take over.

And die in the process.

I can keep them tied to the pole with little trauma when they are young and tender and if I stay on them constantly.

But the minute my mind is elsewhere, the place where the vine grows back down over the tie becomes a hardened kink. I cannot pull it upright. The best I can do is to tie it back to the pole in a bunch while the prickles stab my hands.

Spiteful plant.

Painstakingly I trained the ungrateful thing. But at my first lapse, its natural tendency to run along the ground overcame my training.

And then the Squash Vine Borers moved in.

The plant died.

As I looked at the now dead plant, I realized it isn't just zucchinis that have a rebellion problem. 

How frequently I resist the Lord’s effort to train me. He pulls me upright into the healthiest place for me, but the minute His restraining hand lets go, I turn back down to where my nature wants to roam.

Gently, He pulls me back up again. I get more sun to nourish me that way, and I don’t overtake the space that others need. He protects me from the predators that would bore through my life. 

And although at times it feels like my freedom has been restricted, it really hasn’t. I can grow ten feet along the ground or rise ten feet up into the air. My restrictions lay within my own makeup, not in the Hand that restrains me.

And that garden pole I sometimes fight? It isn’t an inanimate metal stake after all. It is the Vine, Himself, the one who gives me life.