Playing Catch-up in the Garden - How do I let Spring get away from me?

Garden: A Love Story

My complicated relationship with time manifests itself in the gardening life.

I begin preparing for the garden long before I can set things out. One of the great things about a greenhouse is I can plant seeds in January, February, even March, and with the warmth and light of the sun by day, and a little help from a heater by night, I am able to get plants started way before I can plant them. That’s a good situation in a lot of ways. I save money on plants. I am able to choose exactly the varieties I want to grow. And when the weather is warm enough for planting, I have a greenhouse full of them.

An overhead view into the greenhouse. (My man-cave has transparent walls!) It is the most full of plants at this time of year.

So my garden year begins in late winter with work but also waiting. It is very much a now-but-not-yet sort of feel with the now being cold weather in which I plant seeds in the greenhouse and prune in the garden. In March I can set some cold weather things out: lettuce and kale, cabbage and broccoli, radishes and turnips. But still I am waiting. The temperatures are too cold, the sun is too low, and the ground is still frozen (or if not frozen, too freezing cold to work comfortably in). And even when it warms up a little, enough to begin to rake leaves off the beds and work compost into the soil, the nighttime temperatures are still in the upper 30s and 40s. No tomatoes or okra yet.

An aerial view of part of the vegetable garden. The plants along the fence, potatoes, are already twice as tall as in this photo.

As the temperature gradually warms and the soil dries out and becomes more workable, I, of course, do more and more gardening. I observe the approaching, and gradually arriving, growing season. I see daffodils and tulips push their way up, unfurling their bright flowers. I see perennial plants emerge from the softening soil. I see nighttime temperatures inch their way up through the 40s, into the 50s, on their way to the summery, tomato-growing goal of 65. And while all this is happening I’m weeding and cleaning out dried-up plants and leaves, edging beds, making them neat and ready for plants. I empty compost bins of their precious, black/brown and crumbly, sweet-smelling contents both to dig it into the gardens and to make the bins ready for a new season of composting.

A wheelbarrow full of compost. Making compost is like having a front-row seat to a miracle.

And yet every year about this time a moment comes when I realize I’m behind. I could have set the ______ (fill in the blank: tomatoes, potatoes, okra, dahlia tubers, and so forth) out a few weeks ago. How did I get so behind schedule? And look at these plants in the greenhouse, this year about 250 or so I started from seed, transplanted as seedlings into larger containers, watered and tended and yes, they still look good, but now they seem to be getting overgrown, maybe a little leggy, somehow languishing a little. Why didn’t I plant them sooner?

I think my problem is that I am not in tune with time. I’m either rushing it, frantically jamming as much into it as I can or else wasting it, letting it dribble by while I do a lot of I’m not sure what, now that I think about it.

The Orthodox church recognizes the now-but-not-yet reality of God’s work in the world. During Paschaltide, the 40 days after Pascha (Easter), of which about a week remains, we celebrate God’s victory over death, Christ trampling down death by death, knowing that it’s a done deal and yet, somehow, it is not quite over. The victory is won, but the fulfillment of time is still before us. It is both now but not yet.

Maybe if I garden enough I’ll learn to be at peace with time and content with my place in it. I’ll learn to manage myself within time, making appropriate use of that gift, yet also knowing when to pause, to stop and marvel at this garden and even more at life and the people around me: my bride, our grandchildren, our children and their spouses, and friends and neighbors both met and unmet.