Goodnight Garden
I’m out in the cold drizzle, cleaning out this year’s garden.
Boy was it full of life.
Wild, twisting, unpredictable, ugly at times and thriving unimaginably in storms and under the pressure of heat and near tornado like weather. It had so much more potential, too.
But the circumstances are different now. It’s time for the garden to die. It doesn’t want to.
The parsley is as green and full as it’s ever been. The rosemary is sturdy and tall. Even the old basil has more to give. I pick the last bucket of bright red cherry tomatoes. How have these survived the last week? It’s been cold. There are hundreds more green and yellow tomatoes hiding on spindly arms, ready to keep going if they’re left to it.
My tomato cages didn’t hold this year and the cherry tomato plant ran wild and free, through the garden fence, over the heirloom tomato plant, it neighbored the basil. Don’t be gagged, I thought. Grow where you grow. All of you can grow together.
I yank at the cherry tomato plant base.
Man is it sturdy.
I wasn’t prepared for how deep the roots went. I yank and yank and yank and it barely budges.
It wants to stay.
Finally I pull up a raw, ugly root. The entire plant’s once beating heart in my garden gloves.
It was a vibrant garden this year that delivered so much. I brought in armfuls of warm sun-riped tomatoes at a time, buckets of cherry tomatoes, herbs and herbs and herbs. Two peppers I wasn’t sure were quite right.
It only took me about a half hour to tear it all out. The plants might have wanted to stay, but the ground was nice and wet and it made it easy to wipe the whole garden clean.
I’ve got a pile of the ruins, waiting to be mass bagged and removed. All that time growing from nothing to a huge something, and it’s gone in a blink.
Now the garden is flat, black, and blank. Those roots that grew and took shape–they’re gone.
For my garden, there will be a next year.
Boy was it full of life.
Wild, twisting, unpredictable, ugly at times and thriving unimaginably in storms and under the pressure of heat and near tornado like weather. It had so much more potential, too.
But the circumstances are different now. It’s time for the garden to die. It doesn’t want to.
The parsley is as green and full as it’s ever been. The rosemary is sturdy and tall. Even the old basil has more to give. I pick the last bucket of bright red cherry tomatoes. How have these survived the last week? It’s been cold. There are hundreds more green and yellow tomatoes hiding on spindly arms, ready to keep going if they’re left to it.
My tomato cages didn’t hold this year and the cherry tomato plant ran wild and free, through the garden fence, over the heirloom tomato plant, it neighbored the basil. Don’t be gagged, I thought. Grow where you grow. All of you can grow together.
I yank at the cherry tomato plant base.
Man is it sturdy.
I wasn’t prepared for how deep the roots went. I yank and yank and yank and it barely budges.
It wants to stay.
Finally I pull up a raw, ugly root. The entire plant’s once beating heart in my garden gloves.
It was a vibrant garden this year that delivered so much. I brought in armfuls of warm sun-riped tomatoes at a time, buckets of cherry tomatoes, herbs and herbs and herbs. Two peppers I wasn’t sure were quite right.
It only took me about a half hour to tear it all out. The plants might have wanted to stay, but the ground was nice and wet and it made it easy to wipe the whole garden clean.
I’ve got a pile of the ruins, waiting to be mass bagged and removed. All that time growing from nothing to a huge something, and it’s gone in a blink.
Now the garden is flat, black, and blank. Those roots that grew and took shape–they’re gone.
For my garden, there will be a next year.