I spent some time at a community garden yesterday removing weeds from some raised beds of unseeded asparagus. Unseeded asparagus has thin, long, wispy branches and is easy to tell apart from the teardrop- or grass-shaped leaves that make up most small weeds. Also planted on the bed, though, were some tomato plants, which we were instructed to pull as well.
I asked about these tomato plants. "They're food - why pull them?"
"We'll plant tomatoes later. They're important to the crop too. For now, we just want to keep and grow the asparagus."
So I pulled all the weeds - big, small, and tomatoes too - and gave the garden a good once-over before declaring our job done. This morning I learned something that helped me to internalize the process of metaphorical gardening I've been going through in my day-to-day life.
In order to plant a garden, one needs to do a lot of weeding and sometimes remove the fruits one usually enjoys if they don't fit. Ideally with the goal of replanting them again when the time is right.