The weather has turned cool, leaving no doubt that the warm summer days have gone away. All week Tom had suggested that we do a last harvest in the garden, and all week I said, let's wait. Though throughout the week we benefited from others doing their final cleaning out of their gardens. Lunch with a friend included fresh pesto made from basil she had just harvested. A neighbor brought over a bouquet of some of her last zinnias.
I love how gardening encourages sharing and generosity. I need help to be more generous. I love too how it encourages community. My bounty of lettuce compels me to walk down to a neighbor's house, someone I don't know very well, and offer some to her family. A few weeks later she is walking up the block bringing some zinnia seedlings to us. I have plenty of cherry tomatoes to share with friends, and another friend shares some cucumbers with us. I get to hear about the tomato plants I passed along and how well they did in another family's backyard. I think back to times of chatting around my grandmother's table while we snap green beans, or the whole crew of cousins, aunts and uncles helping with the sweet corn.
Food that connects us. Being able to offer something real and nourishing to someone else. Life-sustaining food, and it grew in my backyard.
And then this weekend was our first frost, and it caught me off guard, with a dozen or so peppers still hanging from plants outside. Millie was eager to play out in the silvery frozen grass, so we sent her with the biggest bowl from the kitchen, and she came back with it filled, peppers to the brim. I chopped them frozen, bagged them, and then into the freezer they went, to be added to soup some other day.
My final summer harvest and I think back. I am still a toddler in the garden, exploring and marveling over what I see and find, with much to learn. The sun and the soil do their work, and I stand back and try not to mess things up. But even with much to learn, somehow I still have had much to share. I marvel at the mystery, the miracle, that a seed falls to the earth and dies and becomes a sturdy pepper plant, bearing sweet red peppers and a hundred more seeds. The whole earth is full of His glory.
I think all these thoughts as I nurse the baby to sleep tonight. He is bundled in warm footie pajamas, and I am wearing my winter layers and wool socks. We've turned the heat on and put flannel sheets and an extra blanket on the bed. There is something comforting about the familiarity of being back to our cold weather routines, even while I am melancholy about the approaching winter.
We'll still lend some time and attention to the garden. There is kale still that will hold its own in the cold, and carrots to dig. A few more weeks and we will decide where to put the garlic, which grew in my mother's garden and which will now find a home in mine.
These cold months I will plan, think and dream of next year's perfect garden, ever perfect at least in my mind. There is always next year.
