My garden has gotten away from me again.

No- it hasn’t run away, but the weeds have totally taken over.

It looks like a lush green pasture that needs to be mowed. Seriously.

Somewhere in that grass there are corn plants – I hope.

It reminds of  the time a few years when the garden had gotten out of control just like this.

Our Amish neighbor had stopped by one evening and saw us out there weeding.

He said, “Got away from you didn’t it? Don’t worry – my kids will come down tomorrow morning and help you weed it.”

Seriously.

The next morning 4 Amish kids showed up at dawn – barefoot, walked out to our garden, and started to weed.

I’m not kidding. We were all still in bed.

I got out to the garden with my children just as quickly as we could and watched in awe as these kids worked.

It was amazing! Two of the kids started at the bottom of the row and pulled the weeds directly around the plants – isolating them.  The other two started working between the rows.

Each child made piles of weeds in the middle of the row.

There was not a weed left.

Those kids worked diligently and quickly until the day heated up. Then they came back in the cool of the evening and worked some more.

I was ready for them though – and had large dishes of ice cream and big glasses of kool-aid waiting.

We tried to help them – but I think we slowed them down more than anything.

It was very humbling to see those kids work so diligently on my garden. It was also very helpful to see how they did it.

My own kids learned how to weed effectively by watching them.

But we obviously haven’t applied that knowledge this summer! I wonder if we can still find the hidden corn plants before it’s to late?!