We hadn't seen them in a while. Almost a year, actually. My garden marked the time for me. Last time we met these friends I took them some sweet potato slips. I had been growing them to plant in our garden after the garlic harvest was over and the ground had been tilled, and the needed manure and lime added. I don't know if you have ever grown sweet potato slips, but there are always extras. They are delightful in the way they grow, like a miniature forest springing up from the shoebox with the sweet potato half covered in dirt that sits on the heating pad in the corner of the kitchen. So I wrapped the extra slips and took them with us out to the country home where they were hosting us. We put them on the breakfast table, a simple bit of green in the midst of the best food you've ever eaten.
I planted my slips in my garden at home but had a less than stellar harvest last year. There were just a few potatoes, enough for the neighborhood kids to dig them out and have some fun in October when we cut our pumpkins for Halloween.
So I'm trying again this year, and the extras that didn't find room in the garden were on the table last night.
Garden time doesn't run by numbers on a clock, but in an ancient rhythm of planting and harvesting, growing and rotting, in turn, an alteration between greens and browns that enriches my days, and occasionally produces food.
Will you join me every so often, and spend some garden time with me?
What is green in your garden right now? What is growing in your life?
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