Decay and Harvest

Many plants are dying back now. Most are finding these chilly nights way too hard to endure. I understand. My toes still haven’t thawed out from the snowy display on the hillsides nearby in our unseasonal start to autumn temperature drops. But this weather pattern went far beyond what’s customary for this month. Inside too, the many red roses I gleaned from the friendly feed store crew have seen better days. Their petals drop if you look at them, which I like, but not when they fall on the floor. That’s a bit much, even for me. Besides, I’m on a cleaning freak roll and with plenty to keep me occupied, I don’t need any additional messes to pick up. But then this is my domain. Inside, I mean. John does the big stuff outside. I do everything else, inside and out. I get tired just thinking about it… but all the many recently harvested vegetables make these jobs tolerable.
My tomatoes are ripe on the windowsill and although we eat a few every day they seem to be multiplying at night, when we’re not looking. They are all bright red now no matter how green they were when I picked them. It gives me great pleasure to ignore the produce section of the market and not buy the mostly tasteless products they’re telling me in big letters are such great buys. Everything is priced through the roof nowadays but it wouldn’t be so bad if fruit and veg tasted great. But they don’t. The nutritive value has gone down in the last few decades as we deplete the soils these foods are grown in and then add pesticides to the mix. Nope. I’d rather pluck a ripe peach from my tree I planted from the pit from the mother tree I planted from a pit and bake with that quality of fruit.
Sadly, most things that are producing are also reaching their end of cycle and leaves are turning brown and getting crunchy and dried out while fruit and veg still hang from the branches, but are not quite ready to be taken off the plants.
But it’s time for other flowers and other vegetables to have a turn and so as I garden, I find myself talking to all my plants, new or old and coaxing them a little. I know this makes them thrive. Just as a body of water is affected by our moods or music or any types of sounds or vibrations, we too, like our plants, are living organisms that are affected by our moods and our thoughts and our words. It has been proven many times over that plants respond to kindness, just like our pets and wild animals and of course people.
Kindness can go a long way in helping heal our earth and our lives. As certain things decay and die off, other things come into our view. But we can make the cycles we experience very loving and sustaining with little effort. When I see the way nature works in any time of year, I am so grateful to be a part of this cavalcade of life that is slowing down now down under but promises to come back real soon.