Break up your fallow ground? Have you ever farmed or planted a garden? I have never farmed but before my physical body weakened to where I could not, I planted a garden every spring.
You may be able to scatter good seed on untilled soil in a very few places and get some kind of a crop... that is some good fruit. But... there is a whole lot of land, soil that is, which will yield nothing at all from such careless planting. When I was very young and strong, I would turn over the soil with a shovel and then slice through the big clods of dirt until it was almost fine. [In later years I used a rototiller.]
Then depending on the richness of the soil some fertilizer might be mixed into it before actually planting anything. The best water for me was always that which fell directly from the sky but sometimes it would be too dry for too long and I would have to help things along with water from my garden hose.
Over the years I had some beautiful gardens, but what you start with does make a difference. In California in the Santa Clara valley the soil was fantastic and my first gardening efforts amazed me.
On the other hand, when my job took me to Wyoming, I discovered how bad the soil could be. Two years I was there, and my best efforts could not overcome that alkaline soil. Was it like that thorn filled soil where we are warned not to sow? While Wyoming may be great country for cattle and for mining, where I was in the Rock Springs-Green River area, forget gardening.
In the Bible they were supposed to leave the land alone in the 7th year. It is supposed to be good for the land to do that. Give it an opportunity to replenish itself as God intended. Then come that following year, break up that fallow ground and plant it again.
@MatthewG Are you getting an idea now what Jeremiah was talking about...?
"And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
Who hath ears to hear, let him hear" Matt 13:3-9
