A Late August Garden

Right after planting, during the time when a gardener is constantly worried about a late spring freeze, a garden could not be more beautiful. Every tiny plant is in a nice, straight row. They're all the same size. There is nothing there – except a lot of order and promise.

Then the universe's natural tendency of chaos takes over. One row of eggplant grows like hell and is quickly eaten by bugs, while the row right next to it inexplicably doesn't grow at all. Volunteer tomatoes pop up all over and the vines crush the delicate bib lettuce and blur the lines of the straight rows laid down with care in the spring. Crab grass takes root so close to the peppers that to pull out the one destroys the other. July is full of many drunken nights – a cigarette in one hand, five gallons of gas in the other – wondering whether the rewards could be worth this torment.

Finally, August arrives. The lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, and other early plants are done. This is where I made my mistake in years past. I was nostalgic for those May days of nice straight rows. I would leave the plants – less the veggies – until every last plant in the garden was harvested from for the last time. One wants to keep the garden's baby shoes, so to speak, but gardening quickly kills that nostalgic instinct. I didn't wait to pull all that non-edible stuff this year. It has long since found its way into the chicken coop, where it was mostly devoured by those little devils, and the rest was composted.

Now, the coop is on the soft, tilled dirt where the garden will be again next year, giving the semblance of a yard I still have a chance to recover from a summer of scratching.

The tomato plants are looking like the end is near. The jungle of green is now somewhat limp. The Jersey plants can be called "desiccated" now and the Brandywine are not too far behind. So far this year, they've given me two batches of sauce: one pasta, one salsa. And this is how the season ends.

But never fear. Today was the first three egg day! All sex-links (those crosses between a Rhode Island Red and Plymouth Rock…none of which turned out to be roosters) are laying now. I'm going to need to start working out or something.

Dispatched from the Farm: Until next time.