Thursday, May 17, 2012

Weeds or Greens?

In my journey to get as green as I can (while sacrificing as little as possible), it came to me,
what could be greener than... green... lettuce.

So I put on my farmer's hat and sowed some lettuce seeds.  I generously allowed my children to help, thereby turning it into an educational activity and  awarding myself a 'good job mom' award.
For a couple of weeks we watered the soil, and eagerly observed for growing seedlings.  Soon something grew, something that looked a lot - like a weed.  Every day I googled lettuce seedlings, and strained my eyes trying to compare my little 'green things' to the pictures on the internet, trying to decide which were weeds and which were lettuce seedlings and prayed that I was pulling out the weeds and not the plants.
Eventually I came to the upsetting conclusion, that the lettuce hadn't grown and that all the growing greens
- were weeds.

My "vegetable patch to be' is situated in an unused area of our frontyard so that if you don't make a conscious effort to visit it, it can easily be forgotten.  Which is exactly what happened.  The abandoned patch was blessed with lots of winter rain, and grew tall with all sorts of exciting varieties - of weeds!
As the end of winter approached, the weeds started peering into the window of my children's bedroom and I decided that it was time to break out the gardening equipment and start weeding... I would say I was knee-high in weeds, but that would be an understatement - it was more like shoulder high, yet I had a nice surprise waiting for me at the finish line.

After de-weeding the vegetable patch, I actually found - vegetables.  Three small lettuce plants had actually survived my abandoning them through the charity of winter rains.  I was very inspired and continued watering them - and even treated myself to a piece of lettuce (after thoroughly washing it).

The reason, that until today I have only eaten one piece of lettuce is that I am Jewish, living in Israel, and after enjoying my first care-free lettuce leaf, I was reminded that I first needed to abide by certain laws of Teruma and Maaser.  I have found several sources of how to do that, including an answer that I received form an Aish HaTorah Rabbi to my question, and have no more excuses so will hopefully be serving my home-grown lettuce to my family or guests soon...

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