Time and the Garden

I love watching plants grow - every morning, I walk out and something has changed every time - the tomato plants have grown new suckers, the eggplants have formed their flower stalks and the peas, in this banner year for peas, have produced a new crop of peas - even though I picked them yesterday.

On a human scale, one day is not that much time -- but in the garden, one day can bring a pint of strawberries and the next day only three (or if you've been enjoying this rainy, rainy June like we had, a pile of moldy red goo.) And the day after that, the kale is ready to be picked again. Every day is different and every day is significant.

Having written this, I realize that my farmer friends may laugh at this, because there are certainly days where you're planting onions or picking radishes all day long for several days straight. The work may be the same (weeding, pruning, watering, weeding, picking, addressing pest problems, more weeding), but the plant life is constantly changing.

So far, I am having fewer pest problems this year than last - knock on wood - but there is something eating my dill. These guys are serious eating machines!

These beauties will turn into yellow swallowtail butterflies! Normally, I'm pretty harsh on caterpillars eating my plants, but I have a self-seeded dill forest and I'm happy to share it with the swallowtails.