Mid-Shore Life

The Winter Garden: Strawberry, asparagus and tomato patch

by Polly Irons

I visited my garden today, the first time in over a week. I was not looking forward to seeing the perennial grasses popping up all over the vegetable and flower beds. To my surprise the grass, I believe it to be Kentucky blue grass, is throughout all the beds and is forming a nice turf in all the wrong places. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Oh, well, it will wait until spring."

Walking through the garden gate, I peered to the north where the tomatoes had wilted with the last few nights of frost. To the south, the blooming white alyssum throughout the pathways were sending forth their brilliant snow like color. The gourd, pumpkin, sunflower and sweet corn plots stood bare and quiet. I inhaled deeply, breathing in the solitude before me. I exhaled all my expectations of the perfect garden. At the end of the breath I became one with the stillness, one with the eternal cycle of life.
Winter Garden: Childrens' herb and flower gardens
Walking through the garden, I found myself tip-toeing and whispering so as not to wake anyone up. I laughed outright and enjoyed the splendor before me. The withered pumpkins and gourds had battled the squash bugs and cucumber beetles and yet were able to produce a fruit for harvest and seeds to carry on the cycle. The sunflowers were leafless and brittle with an abundance of seed heads to feed the gold finches throughout the winter. Gifts from NatureThe tomatoes produced an endless crop of sweet juicy fruit until Thursday, our first hard frost. Of course they are exhausted, withered and dead! During summer, the peak of the season, the plants were alive with color and vitality. It is now their time to breath deeply and slowly, to lie down and rest, heal and rejuvenate; to die and send forth their seeds. It is time to sleep the winter away.

I no longer enter my garden with the fervor to battle the bugs and weeds, the eagerness to harvest the fruits and vegetables or the excitement to pick a bouquet of flowers. I now retreat to my garden to rest and sleep the winter away.