Gathering Gold From The Garden

The garden's small offering, warm from the sun and the season's patience

This afternoon, I wandered into the garden barefoot with watering can in hand and came back with gold - little yellow pear tomatoes, bright as lanterns, and clusters of cherry reds still warm from the sun. The vines had curled themselves into wild shapes over the summer, green tangled with green, the fruit hiding under leaves like they were keeping secrets.

One by one, I found them. Some slipped easily into my hand, others clung to the vine as if the season wasn't ready to let go. They landed in my t-shirt softly, filling it slowly until it glowed and stained the colors of late summer.

This is what I love about the life I'm building here - nothing about it is fast. The bread rises in its own time. The wools waits for the dye to take. And the garden gives what it gives, when it chooses, never at once, never on a schedule.

There is no rushing a tomato into ripeness. There is no hurrying the flavor that comes only from sun and rain and the work of roots unseen. When I slice one open for lunch, the taste carries the whole season - the watering in the heat, the smell of dirt after rain, the bees moving lazily from bloom to bloom.

A few will go into salad tonight. Some will be marinated with olive oil and thyme. Maybe I will have enough left over to make a tomato pie. Most will simply be eaten out of hand, juice running over my fingers.

This small harvest will be done by evening, but the rhythm of it stays with me: the slowness, the giving, the way life unfolds when you let it. The garden keeps teaching me the same thing bread and art and music already know - that time and care make beauty, and the smallest gifts often carry the most.