A Garden’s Resilience

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I’ve moved. Just 1.5 miles due east, but I have up and transported my whole household nonetheless. Moving truck, multiple carloads of miscellany, cat carrier—the whole works. And for a week, it was just us on an air mattress and an echoing condo. That was about three and a half weeks ago. And while I had the best of intentions to visit the community garden plot during the transition, well, it didn’t happen. Imagine: The last week of August, prime time for harvesting summer crops in the garden, and not one visit.

The big move came, and it was followed by a week of packing up the do-dads and important breakable things, waiting for move-in day. And that was followed by a week of “getting things in order.” Getting everything in order but the garden, of course. The garden wasn’t in a box sitting in my living room, so it was out mind.

And here’s the kicker: Once I was able to breathe again, an embarrassment and shame only a gardener can feel washed over me.

“Oh man, I can only imagine the rotting tomatoes!” I thought to myself.

“The gigantic zucchini must be blocking the paths,” I imagined.

During that two-plus week period there was a lack of rain, making my guilt even deeper. An old-fashioned downpour put that worry out of my head, making it possible for me to postpone my garden visit even longer. And making it possible to wallow in guilt and embarrassment longer, too. What if I ran into another gardener? What would they think of me?

Three weeks after my last visit to the garden, I pedaled over to take my punishment. I felt like a schoolgirl who had put off a homework assignment and finally had to face the teacher. Dunce cap, be kind to me.

And what met me was a growing garden, not a jungle of weeds. Not a drought-stricken plot with parched cabbages. It was my garden, albeit slightly bigger. Yes, bigger. Things had grown without me hovering over them.

The kale was growing! The chard had taken off! Yes, the tomatoes had dropped, but 95% of them were fine. And I didn’t have Godzilla Zucchini terrorizing the pathways. In fact, I had only two slightly oversized zukes waiting for me.

I had brought a backpack and a packable shopping bag to haul stuff home, and believe me, I filled them both. In fact, I had so many tomatoes in the shopping bag it threw off my balance on the bike, requiring me to walk everything home.

This was a harvest of forgiveness. It was a gift from my garden that I felt grateful for. With all the garden and I have gone through together this season—new soil, flea beetles, aphids, lack of fertilizer, that darned cat—the plot carried on without me, and did quite well, thank you very much.

I’ve been back twice since, and will continue to visit on a more regular basis now that things are settling down. It’s my turn to give back to the garden with a bit more care this fall.

Meet Ellen Wells

When you’re raised on a farm, you can’t help but know a thing or two about gardening. Ellen Wells is our expert on edible gardening.…

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