Summer Gardening 6 (Last Installment in This Series)

The monsoon came. By “monsoon,” I mean only a week of showers. The hot, muggy weather, punctuated by frequent spells of rain, grew a carpet of tiny weeds over the bare soil of my garden. I pulled the tall weeds that had a head start and waited for a day dry enough to push my one-wheeled cultivator through the open ground.

For several weeks, the weeds and I did battle. Eventually, I surrendered, and a lush growth of crabgrass soon carpeted the ground. 

My Garden on September 27th with Crabgrass

And Brown Stalks of Sunflowers

Here is what I had thought I would write in my blog: Meanwhile, my snow peas enjoyed the wet earth. They curled their tendrils upward, flowered, and began to form the edible pods for which they are revered. I was amazed that peas, which I have always considered a cool-weather crop, could be harvested in August! Pods with their fresh snap adorned my salads! Unfortunately, I could not compose such sentences. My snow peas were a total flop. They remained stunted plants that set on nary a pea, as my grandmother might have said.

Was I disappointed? Why, yes! But I looked back on a summer of fun and contentment amounting to bliss: not a loss, no matter what!

My garden was essentially finished. It amazes me how quickly a garden adopts a bedraggled appearance after the plants have ceased to be productive. The shabby stalks of broken-down sunflowers and the browned leaves of what had been vibrantly green beans not a month ago were symbolic of the change of seasons and of all things that begin, only to end. Of course, nature also represents things that end, only to begin! Five months had elapsed since I had planted the first seed. I had worked happily during three seasons. Chuang Tsu quoted Confucius as saying, “Live so that you are at ease, in harmony with the world, and full of joy. Day and night, share the springtime with all things, thus creating the seasons in your own heart.”*

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*Chuang Tsu Inner Chapters: A New Translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English (New York: Vintage, 1974).