A month into the growing season, Persephone was yanked back to the underworld and winter returned to the garden. The skies play-acted a week of the Blitz on tender new growth, dropping blankets of snow and hail that stripped the leaves from carefully covered rows. The promising patch of nightshades hatched from seed in our library stood as an army of dead stems when I pulled back the burlap and sheets. The branches of stone fruit dipped to the ground, cracking from the weight of snow on freshly-opened leaves. I felt defeated, but planted small backups in a new plot. What I didn't expect, is that all of them would come back.
That's the sometimes-arrogance of this clumsy gardener. I tend the soil and prune out weeds and sick leaves and tie branches to stakes. I curate which plants stay and go, but the miracle of life that I witness every day is a gift beyond me.
I counted seventy thriving tomato plants in the garden today. I'll have to face my nemesis, Colonel Pressure Canner, soon.
