When I Give From My Garden

When I give you gifts from my garden, it means something about you and me. To me, it means you are a gift, that you have added something to my life.

Just this past winter, I was a virgin organic vegetable gardener. I was just learning because in the past vegetables have been WAY out of my league. But this winter, I started anew, armed with seed catalogs, some seed starting trays, compost and a lot of enthusiasm.

So I sewed the seeds. I waited and hoped, and when the little shoots appeared, you would have thought that Buddha himself had descended from the clouds and told me to bring my enlightened ass home (though I'm sure he would not have put it that way). The sight of those little seedlings was so promising that it gave me the encouragement to care for the hundreds of little things each day. It was not all sweetness and light; somedays I forgot, somedays I left the damn things out in the sun too long and some of them burned. I lost a LOT of seedlings.

Come spring thaw, I only had a few of each left to put in the ground. I ended up planting tomatoes, cantelope, watermelon, cucumber, zuchinni and yellow squash, and waiting hopefully to see what emerged.

Many more plants were lost once in the ground, to bugs, birds, squirrels, chipmunks and human little boys who ignore their mother's pleas and run through the garden in soccer cleats.

What I have left now is one of each type of plant - one of each. Each plant unique. Each thriving, much to my surprise, and each is abundantly beautiful. I am so proud, not of me, but of the plants doing what is encoded into each of their genetic blueprints.

So when the fruits come to ripen and it is time to harvest, it is with a lot of love that I remove them from their plant and give them to you. It is my deepest hope that you can feel and taste what went into growing it, the months of preparation, dedication and care, and the love I have for each plant as it grows; the love I must feel for you in some way, my friend, as I give to you of myself, what I've worked on for so long.