garden karma

We planted our garden early. We poked beans and lettuce and broccoli seeds into the rich soil and carefully selected early fruiting tomato varieties. We knew we would have to leave our garden behind. We outlasted our broccoli and lettuce. We pulled the plants and turned the soil, readying the pots for another crop. Our basil and beans are still producing, but the tomatoes didn't quite ripen up. I clipped the extra leaves to allow the light through to the green fruit below. I heaved the barrel into a sunnier spot when the light angles changed. But the tomatoes didn't ripen. Until three days ago when we plucked our first Sweet Million, then second then third.

But we're leaving in three days, and our garden had to go. We contemplated the options all summer long. Dumping the dark soil onto the herbicide dirt patch in the back yard and giving away the barrels hardly seemed like an option. Selling the garden also seemed like an unlikely prospect. Prematurely uprooting the garden seemed to betray the idea of a garden as a representation of life cycles on a micro-scale: seed, seedling, sapling, mature plant, fruit, seed. I just couldn't stand the idea of destroying the bean vines and tomato plants, pulling the basil, Swiss chard, squash and Okra before they were ready to harvest. So I thought about it every day.

Then it dawned on me. The whole garden could be transported with the help of a friend with a big strong truck, three friends with big strong muscles and a family that wanted a bigger garden. And so it was. Today our good friends came with the truck and the strong men and the want of a bigger garden. They loaded up first the squash, then the chard, basil, okra, tomatoes and lastly the beans and drove off down the road, all six barrels in tow.