growth

Written in tribute to the summer season now past.

The backdoor creaks and slams behind me as I head to the garden to pick Sungolds, my stomach growling for the dinner postponed by diapers and baths and bedtime books.

Even as the sky fades into oranges and pinks, my hair plasters against my forehead and beads of sweat slide past my temples and down my neck.

I pull back the tangled vines and pluck ripe tomatoes from the plants. Sungolds, cherries, plums…yellow, orange and red tomatoes dot the mess of green. I would fill my bowl more quickly if my mouth didn’t get in the way.

A cacophony of cries, screams and laughter pours out of open windows. Three boys should be climbing into beds, but they’re climbing the walls instead.

The state of the garden speaks of how busy we have been. The overgrown tangle of food and weeds tells tales of chasing after three young boys. Who has time for a garden? If we waited until we had time, we’d be gathering our veggies from the grocery store instead of the backyard.

Last year we grew tomatoes, cucumbers, and some herbs. This year, our ambitions were high and we planted all of our favorites -- spinach and strawberries, all kinds of greens, roots and fruits, early bloomers and late comers. Believing that there’s always room in our hearts and our gardens for a little more love, we squeezed in more whenever a friend offered seeds.

I shake my head at the garden, an overgrown tangled mess. What were we thinking? An idea in the spring, We’ll grow our own food. An hour of planting here and there. The concepts of time and maintenance eluded us as we planned our garden of goodness.

There’s no time for weeding. We can’t harvest every veggie or clear out the plants that have died back. The bolted greens and the herbs that have gone to seed look like boys with cuffs rising above their ankles and holes in their knees. We are overgrown. We have clothes that don’t fit and more veggies than we can eat.

But we are more than meets the eye. Our spinach is as nutritious and our tomatoes are as juicy as the trimmed and tamed garden of the neighbors with time, just as our self-dressed boys with bed-head and wild grins are as sweet as well-groomed children.

Every time I walk into the backyard, the garden declares anarchy. Phlox, Black-Eyed Susans, and weeds intermingle with tomatoes and peppers. Tall grasses shoot up and grow as a high as the pole beans, taller than five year old boys.

The garden plot bleeds into the play spaces of the yard. Squash and cucumbers mingle with little yellow dump trucks and front loaders. I step over a renegade pumpkin to retrieve shovels and buckets. The giant vine we didn’t plant is taking over our backyard, creeping and inching further into the grass, soaking up the sun-filled days. That pumpkin is a big, orange reminder that it’s not all in our plans. That even without our efforts, beauty and goodness spring up. That which looks like a trip line threatening to land us face first in the mud can bring bounty, and maybe even pie.

The chaos in our yard mirrors what’s happening in our home. Good intentions and wild ambitions become a tangled mess with hidden treasures. We let nature run wild, and the flowers growing up among the chard look like boys with mismatched socks. But the mess is made of good stuff and there are gifts hiding among the brambles.

We plant. They grow. Our gardens and our families. The gifts and the treasures and the cycles of growth nourish our bodies and our souls, but so do the messes and tangles and surprises that ripen on vines -- even when they threaten to trip us up.

I wipe the sweat from my neck before heading back in with cucumbers and a bowl full of fruits. Somehow it fits – there is beauty in that chaos that rises from the dirt and pours from open windows. It’s hard work, these gardens we grow.

But our lives our fruitful -- with boys and lots of tomatoes.