The Humility of Gardening

There was a light frost on the fields this morning. If you squint a bit, you can almost believe it's snow. By nine a.m. it was all gone. The night before, expecting cold weather, I had placed sheets over the tenderest of the vegetables, and now I needed to remove them so the feeble rays of sun could give them a boost for the next two days of predicted really cold weather. I will put them back on.
I have been so proud of this winter garden, mostly all brassicas- collards, broccoli, and the mustard greens and beets, and two lovely raised salad tables, now bursting with many kinds of lettuces, chard and mizuma. I have put in a row of snow peas because I know they can take the cold better than any plant. The deep hay mulch keeps the weeds at bay, or at least hidden. This hay roll was a gift from my wonderful neighbor, Warren, and hardly a day goes by when I don't put another load on the garden. Tonight I have covered the hardiest vegetables with a thick layer of hay. I wonder if it will keep those babies safe. I have spread a lot of bed sheets over the salad tables and the broccoli plants now covered with florets.
The orchids live next to the pool and I hope they will not freeze. I have covered them with sheets, but they are pretty hardy plants.
I know that when I go out tomorrow morning I will smell that acrid odor of frozen plant cells now bursting. I know that the ferns will have that shiny look of death by cold. The bird bath will be frozen stiff, the milkweed flowers limp. The pastures will be sere and brown and the cows will need more feed. The bird feeders will need filling. The cardinals will relentlessly remind me.
It has been a wonderfully warm winter, after an usual blast of frost in November. The plants had no clue about what to do. Even with the short days of winter, they leapt up in the warm sun. We've been eating our own salad every day and have those collards in every way we can imagine. Broccoli is on the menu several days a week. The deer and armadillos have left the garden alone, the dogs bark off the rabbits, the bugs are waiting for warmer weather, and we have been eating well. My spring seeds have come in the mail and the tomatoes and peppers are sprouting in their plastic pots that live for now indoors on the bench in the inglenook.
But! Now we face some extreme cold weather for the next few nights. Those crazy colored bedsheets over everything will not be enough. I know this. My husband reminded me today that probably we will lose the garden but life will go on.
I have the new seeds ready to plant and those sprouts coming along. I love this aspect of living dangerously embedded in the natural world. It keeps me humble. I cannot count on the weather in winter. (In summer I can always count on the weather being totally hot and humid and full of bugs and mildews and blossom end rot, not to mention malignant flinders.)
The garden keeps my balance. This is a good thing because my head was in danger of being swollen too big this week. My daughter hosted a book signing party for me and my new book, "A Good Day for Uncle Elmo: Stories from a Schoolteacher's Journal". It was a very fun party and so affirming of the work I loved. Got back home, tended the garden, and replied to requests for a couple more book signing events. I'll do them because all the proceeds go to the school I wrote about.
Now, my small grandson is about to arrive to spend four days with his grandparents. I am thinking about French toast and fresh squeezed orange juice for breakfast and then, perhaps a trip to the library and the train museum and maybe make cookies. Let's not forget the hot chocolate on a frosty morning. Candyland is the game of the day and I have rented "The March of the Penguins" we can watch together.
Vegetables and kids growing. My head is getting back to the right size but my heart grows with the bounty of life.