June 2021

                   

 

June's calling card is a sudden rush of color that, overnight, swathes all browns and grays in saturated greens and yellows. The only brown that remains is freshly-tilled earth, into which we sink our hopes of more greens and yellows. 

I've been starting plants from seed every year for over a decade, and 2021 was the first year that my basil and green pepper starts dwarfed my tomato starts. What?! Basil babies taller than tomato babies? It made no sense, but perhaps it was an omen of the garden to come, which was the most barren garden we've ever had and which by harvest time had almost entirely died except for (you guessed it) my basil and peppers  and brussels.* 

We knew nothing of this in June, as we labored hard in the heat for what we thought was our bread to come. Ah, well. One benefit of a blog that lies fallow for over a year is that the disappointment has dissipated, and we have a brand new garden in which fresh hopes grow all green and vine-y and tangled in the sun.

Praise God for new mercies.

*(Oops. The peppers died, but Robbie gave us boxes of free peppers, so we did not suffer their lack.)