Growing Food: Lessons

A few days ago, my elderly neighbor--the one we butchered the bull with--stopped by with two tomato plants and two pepper plants for me.

The bell pepper plant already had a pepper on it, so I had to tie it up to keep it from flopping over.

She lost all her plants in the storm as well, and went to town to buy some more at a nursery. She picked up a bunch of extras, though, and went around delivering them to everyone she knew who had a garden that was damaged in the storm.

She is old enough to remember when the loss of the vegetable garden literally meant less food for a family. Although that's not really the case anymore, not even here, she also knows the sadness of a gardener who watched all her hard work get pounded into the ground in a matter of minutes.

I had just that morning re-planted some seeds, as well. For some reason, the dill plants got absolutely obliterated. Unlike other plants, they are not going to put any new growth on the remaining broken, bare stalks. None had yet gotten to the seed stage. So although I haven't had to plant dill since the first year I had a garden here, I had to do it this year if I wanted it to self-seed as it always does.

While I was out there planting the dill, I also planted a couple of short rows of lettuce. There is time for that to get to harvest before frost, for sure. It doesn't do as well being summer-planted as first thing in the spring, but I should get something.

Most of the rest of the things I grow need more than a couple of months to go from seed to food, but I did replant the calabaza. It won't have time to make a fully mature winter squash, but it should have time to produce a few calabacitas for eating. Especially since one of the seeds sprouted literally two days after I put it in.

A seed with a powerful will, for sure. (The ground there looks so rough because I worked horse manure into the rows. I figure those seeds can use all the help they can get to grow well.)

I continue to water and weed what was left after the storm, despite all the damage. There are several lettuce plants from the carpet of volunteers in the tomato bed that are still growing and will set seeds. This will ensure lettuce next year.

And the lettuce plants that died made a surprisingly thick mulch in this spot. Bonus.

Optimism and hope for the next season are sort of essential for a gardener.

I did have to pull up some carrots and beets that sustained too much damage and had no new growth at all after a few days.

A very small harvest.

Almost every other thing in the garden has new growth on it, though.

New rhubarb leaves.

New asparagus spears.

New watermelon flower.

Even a new tiny Roma tomato.

And most surprising of all, new leaves on the two-inch, bare, broken vine of the last remaining calabaza plant.

They may be broken, but they are not dead. 

If any of us (ahem, ME) needed some lessons in tenacity, these plants will provide it.

My neighbor can teach us all about generosity and kindness.

And the garden in general can serve as a lesson to us all about hope for the future. There's always another growing season and another chance for growth. All is never lost, as long as there is life.