My First Love

The garden has always been my first love.   I love the dirt, and sweat, and the feeling that I am creating my own legacy.  Even when I was gardening on a fire escape, something about having a garden says I am home, even if home isn't a place of your own. There is no doubt in my my mind that when you move the earth, the earth also moves you.  The garden has taught me so many lessons about life.  A seed the size of an "o" can yield a beautiful tomato given enough sun, water, and time, it has also shown me heartbreak, plants don't grow, and the rains don't come, and squirrels and possums can be merciless.  Sometimes you yield all your control and go on faith that if you plant it, and love it enough, it will love you back, and if it doesn't you can always rip it out.  It hurts, but you just try again.  The garden is a constant reminder that nothing is constant, no amount of hard work, or intuition, or luck will make something grow if it doesn't want too.  It teaches me that I am not as in control as I think I am, that even I, sometimes, have to yield.  In the picture above is my garlic patch.  The cloves planted in October will be ready to harvest in July.  I am always surprised to see the shoots, like familiar faces pop up through the snow in March,  they are the first to say remember us, we have been waiting for you.