The chaos of reaching towards the sun

I didn’t realize until late July that my vegetable garden had turned itself into a beautiful mess.

I planted early this year, mid May. I stuck to the basics: tomatoes, green beans, peppers, cucumbers and lettuce. I told myself that this is the year I would pay attention to it every day. And honestly, the weather required this of me because we have had a hot, hot summer. 

At first, I began to question my early start. My tomatoes looked like they might have root rot from a rainier than usual May. The weeds were growing faster than anything I had carefully planted. By June my green beans, the only plants I grew from seed, most of them failed to come up. Since green beans are my favorite, I found a flat of them at a local garden store and bought all 48 of those plants. I packed those little guys in between the few beans that did sprout. 

As May turned to June and the rain became less frequent, I took over. My morning routine has been to rise early with the sun and give those plants a drenching. They must like the consistency of that and the hot sun because my garden looks better this year than it ever has. 

I’ve been watering and waiting. Lettuce has been in abundance, a couple of cucumbers appear and the occasional red grape tomato. I’ve watched as it became quite clear that the variety of beans I bought to fill in were the kind that should really have a trellis. I have no trellis. They have been persistent in attempting to make their own trellises. They wrap themselves around each other, the spigot post, the hose, the tomato cages, the tomatoes themselves. It’s a bit disorderly but other than pulling them off of the tomatoes, I just allow them to do their thing. 

This morning, before I water, I sit on the grass and get a close-up view of the garden that I don’t usually get while being their rainmaker. I get a glimpse into their world. This garden is the most prolific, healthiest looking one I’ve ever had, but up close it’s a mess. Those out of control bean vines are grasping at anything and everything around them. The tomatoes are stretching well beyond their cages with branches filled with dozens of yellow blooms. The pepper plants are all in need of a stake. The cucumbers have taken over their corner of the garden, not allowing anyone else to cross their self-proclaimed border. No one seems to be playing well in the sandbox except the lettuce which just kind of clumps together and minds its own business. 

Yet, underneath the unruly, seemingly out of control bean vines, there is a bounty of beans, hanging abundantly from the branches. They peacefully stand side-by side, patiently waiting to be noticed underneath the chaos right above them. The pepper plants lean into one another, supporting their neighbors when their load is a bit too heavy to carry by themselves. The first red tomatoes are deep within the tomato cages as if they want to avoid that power struggle between their more adventurous branches and the bean vines. Their job is to turn red and that’s what they quietly, unassumingly do. The lettuce ignores all the drama all around it. Their leaves seem to grow overnight.

There’s a lot going on in the tiny world of my vegetable garden. Exuberant growth, a push and pull for dominance of space, disruption of norms, the hard work of production, calm existence. Everyone has their own daily drama, their own story, as they keep reaching towards the light. 

I hope they can survive the chaos, reach their full potential, do what they were placed on this little plot of land to do. I tower above them and water, water, water. The bees buzz around me, my partners with wings, in the quest to keep these plants alive and productive.  I pull the weeds, I make sure the soil is good soil. 

They are unaware of my hand in any of this, the help from afar, the promise that I will attend to their basic needs. I tend to my garden and then step back. I stay mostly silent. I wait and see.  It is up to them to turn to the sun and grow, grow, grow.