the garden grows...and slows...
I returned from our summer vacation expecting to a see a garden full of bright red tomatoes, just like it was right before we left. It took me a full 48 hours to realize, “Oh. The peak of our tomato season has ended”.
This was my greatest year of gardening. My personal definition of that is that I had the least amount of attachment, the most amount of fun, the most curiosity, the most childlike joy, the most amount of time in there with my kids, the most amount of experimentation in the kitchen with recipes, the most hands on work (versus anxious neglect), and the most amount of sharing of produce. Actually, when I started writing this list just now I never intended to include so many things. That’s always the beauty of writing things down - my gratitude expands.
Highlights from the garden this year included:
Picking hornworms off the tomato plants with the 5 year old. Yes. She ran out there excitedly first thing in the morning 3 mornings in a row, eager to find the little buggers.
My 5 year old “feeding” the tomato plants food scraps.
The return of my love for cooking and connection to my food! You’ve been missed. There have been salads, wraps, dressings, dips, and more, oh my.
The hanging pumpkin wall, of course.
Giving away fresh tomatoes, beans & squash. I just love giving homegrown food to our neighbors & imagining them cooking for their families with our summer’s sweet abundance.
When you direct sow the seeds, you go days without seeing anything. And every year, without fail, I convince myself NOTHING AT ALL is going to grow. And then, finally, a sprout! Two little leaves! A stem! It’s all so strangely miraculous and joyful and healing.
And then one week all of a sudden there’s a giant burst of life. Giant leaves. The signs of the first few flowers. Lady bugs and all the pesky beetles.
But it’s life! Brimming left and right.
And the weeds. All of a sudden the weeds are every where. Competing for life, for nutrients, for your attention. Strangling, suffocating, stifling. Until you get in there and decide what you will leave and what you will pull - allowing everything and everyone to breathe more freely and deeply again. Ah it feels so good. The soil stuck under your nails. The sweat that drips down your face. The sun that bathes you - yes remember that sweet feeling?
And then, tomatoes. Finally the day when they’re bright red and you can pick them and place salt inside their juices flesh and consume to your hearts desire.
And before you know it, you’re attached. You go out there every day expecting to find the same billowing harvest. Tomato after sweet tomato. Lifting leaves. Ducking under weighted branches. Red peeking out from unsuspecting puddles of green.
It’s as if I was almost addicted to the adrenaline of it.
So, when it first dawned on me last week that that tomatoes were dwindling I felt a sadness. I tightened my grip on the tomatoes. Desperate to cling to the last bits of crimson in our kitchen a little longer, I left the tomatoes too long in our kitchen, watching them soften and grow fruit flies before I finally realized nothing gold can stay.
This morning, a calm came over me as I looked out the window at our green garden. The determined wildness of the squash, spilling over the fencing, tearing it down in its path. The billowing holy basil, bolted and flowering. The wildflowers, lovely and wistful. And a few orange tomatoes talking to me,
“You can slow down now.”
The garden grows. And the garden slows.
We plan our days by the 24 hour clock, our weeks by the weekdays and weekends.
The gardens show a different rhythm. Seasonal movements more similar to the sporadic seasons of the human life. Joy. Sadness. Rest. Release. Grief. Pain. Freedom. Bliss.
Awhile ago, I heard someone say that instead of saying “Welcome back” to the school year child, we should say “Welcome forward”. And as I find myself now a parent to a rising Kindergartener and forest pre-k-er, I’m resistant to giving into the “back to school” energy.
Instead, I’m welcoming myself (and my kids hopefully) forward. And for me, that doesn’t feel like getting psyched up for school gear and routines- - though that may be a part of this next phase, too.
Welcoming myself forward this year feels like slowing down again. Asking myself how I want to make the most of these last few weeks of summer. How can I change our mornings to feel more like a ritual? What will that look like in September? I’m actually not yet ready to intention set - so I’m just letting these questions linger as I continue to savor what we still have. After so many years suffering from sleep deprivation, I’m still soaking in the sweetness of late summer nights looking for fireflies with my kids and long, slow, less-to-do mornings at home. It feels like this is the most present I’ve been able to be with them in a long time.
There’s so much I’m looking forward to in Fall: writing circles, storytelling events, yoga classes, creativity workshops, etc. But for now, I’m trusting the ethers with my visions, plans and dreams, while I let the “slowing-down” wash over me.