The Five-Minute Garden Round
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Near the end of the day, I take a shallow bowl and walk once around the garden before going inside.
It is not a harvest.
A harvest requires baskets and plans and some idea of what one intends to do with six pounds of tomatoes.
This is only a round.
Carry the bowl.
Pick what is ready.
Snip one useful handful of herbs.
Remove one tired thing.
Notice one thing that changed.
Leave the rest of the garden alone.
Tonight, I found two tomatoes warm from the last of the light, a handful of herbs, and one bean hiding beneath a leaf as though it had made other arrangements.
Then I discovered the zucchini.
I looked at it.
It looked unnecessarily large.
I am certain it was much smaller yesterday, although the zucchini and I appear to remember yesterday differently.
Into the bowl it went.
I removed one flower that had finished, then tipped a dry seed head into a small paper envelope for later. By then, the insects had become loud enough to make the whole garden feel busy without me.
So I stood still and listened.
Five minutes became eight.
Nobody filed a complaint.
There were stems that could have been tied and leaves that could have been checked. I could have found another task quite easily.
I did not.
I carried the bowl inside and left the garden to its evening.
Bring in what is ready. Let the rest keep becoming.
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