Autumn Arrives in the Garden

By my own admission back in August, I have not paid much attention to gardening this summer. My energy and attention have been spent on other fronts.

It shows.

The weather while we were recently out of town at Mayo didn't help. It rained a lot—not the torrential rains that hit other parts of Ohio and the Midwest, but enough. Ripe tomatoes split open, others dropped to the mud. The large pots on our deck (which we have spent too little time on this season) are full of tall grasses, courtesy (I assume) of the birds; those grasses are outperforming any of the flowers we planted. The flower seeds I sowed (casually) in the back of the garden came up and have spent weeks shoving one another out of the way. It is hard for zinnias to look beat to pieces, but mine do.

This week, which didn't start until we got a little bit of sleep after arriving home at about 1:15 a.m. Tuesday morning, has been full of all kind of "must tend to" things—catching up on mail, catching up on email, dropping in to see my dad, a series of appointments and other obligations. But I hit a lull, a space, on Friday afternoon where I took clippers in hand, along with a large bowl, lugged the yard waste container around to the garden, and set to work.

Better late than never?

I clipped a lot of tomato vines, both those done with whatever they had produced or those sending out late blooms that clearly would not mature. I picked up and tossed the rotted, split open tomatoes into the container, some of them splitting even further as they landed. I was grateful to see that there are still a few (very few, but a few!) of the larger tomatoes (Best Girls, maybe) still green on the vine, so I hope yet for a few big tomatoes this season. ("Big" compared to cherry tomatoes, which are still coming on, small compared to beefsteak varieties.) I picked peppers—a peck of them? If not literally, certainly figuratively. Those will head to the freezer for meals all winter.

And then I sat down and took a long break. Blue sky, thin wispy clouds. Crowded flowers. Bees in and out. 

Butterflies in and out.

In the past, I have referred to this time as "bee therapy." As I travel through Buddhist realms each day with Thich Nhat Hanh, with his focus on mindful breathing, I wonder if I shouldn't call it bee meditation?

Whatever I call it, I need it. 

I'm penning this out Friday night, to type out Saturday morning. We have an almost full moon and the thin clouds are illuminated from behind. The daylight has changed as the sun moves south. My favorite season is on our doorstep. In a few more weeks, the changing times will bring the 2026 garden to a close.

And that is enough for now.