How Does My Garden Grow?

For the last six weeks or so, my garden has been a study in contradictions. Usually fall follows summer in a pretty predictable pattern: food crops ripen and are harvested, leaves begin to fall in earnest, the ambient temperature drops. This year it was a little different. My peppers and tomatoes did not do very well this year although my flowers were explosively abundant. I heard the same thing regarding food crops from other gardeners in my area. The plants would bud and bloom but wouldn't set fruit.

Then in mid-August the leaves began falling off the trees in such quantities that I had to sweep them up on a daily basis, giving me reason to believe an early fall would set in. After about three weeks of this behavior, the energy shifted, seemingly from one day to the next. The falling leaves slowed to a trickle and suddenly the non-performing tomatoes fruited and swelled as if trying to play catch-up. It was as if the oncoming energy of fall was deferring to the late-blooming energy of summer, holding its breath, if you will, to give summer a chance to tend to unfinished business before resuming. This week, Summer shows her waning face during the day while Autumn cools the nights, each taking turns as if on a seesaw. Soon Autumn will take over and it will be back to business.

There have been other contradictory signs in my garden as well. While there have been reports for years about the waning bee population, this year I saw a marked increase in bee activity, at times observing as many as five different varieties of bees in my garden simultaneously. I also observed more monarch butterflies this summer than I have in the previous 17 years I have lived in my house. So with this flurry of pollinating activity going on, why didn't the crops do better?

And then there was the mystery melon. A melon vine mysteriously appeared in my garden and began to grow. Although I did not plant it, out of curiosity I allowed it to mature. Only one melon fruited, a small, softball-sized canteloupe. When it fell off the vine, I left it in the sun for about a week. I didn't think it was any good, but when I cut it open it was sweet and delicious. A totally unexpected surprise.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and take my observations a little further. This will sound a little far-fetched if not downright absurd but bear with me. The rise of Barack Obama in the presidential campaign has been an unexpected surprise for many. Polls show the popularity of the two candidates seesawing slightly, up a little one day, down a little the next. The country seems to be holding its breath, waiting for the political race to end before exhaling. Once it ends, the new president will take over and it will be back to business.

In many ways, it seems to me that the energy surrounding the events occuring in our country have been forecasted by the energy in my garden. Of course my garden experience is not the same as another's and I don't pretend to be able to divine anything by watching how my garden grows. I'm just making corresponding connections where they seem to fit.

I wonder if that flurry of busy bees and those poor tomatoes trying to catch up have anything to say about this $700 billion bailout.

Ballo ergo sum,
Always and all ways,
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

The First Signs of Autumn

Labor Day weekend was remarkable for two reasons: 1) It was quiet. My usually festive and very LOUD Caribbean neighbors were NOT having a party or a barbecue so there was none of the requisite soca, reggae and house music blasting at triple digit decibel levels, and 2) I picked the first apples of the season from my tree. This crop ripened a little earlier than in previous years and a bountiful crop it is.

My apples are organic. While in some circles that means wholesome, natural and without chemical pesticides, in my backyard, more often than not, that translates into insect-ridden and bird-pecked. The tree is just too darned big to be effectively sprayed against insect pests. As for the birds, you can see from my photos that I have a healthy parrot population enjoying the literal fruits of my labor. Between the bugs and the birds, I lose more apples than I'm able to harvest. Nevertheless I love my apple tree.

In spite of the rather large losses I incur every apple season, I manage to save enough to merit a decent pie or two and more than a few apple empanadas (apples in a dough crust, deep-fried, glazed, then dusted with confectioner's sugar. YUM!). This year's batch even yielded some that were good enough to eat out of hand. Although I wait patiently all summer for this moment to arrive, I greet it with a melancholy grin and a small sigh of resignation. Ripe apples are the harbingers of autumn and are as sure a sign of summer's end as the waning daylight. It's downhill to the holidays from here, which seem to come earlier and earlier each year, thanks to guerilla marketing tactics.

I can't stop the relentless march of the seasons but facing it becomes a whole lot easier with a slice of hot apple pie.

Ballo ergo sum,
Always and All Ways,
- Gitana

Of Ice Cream and Summer Walks

A friend of mine recently emailed me one of those messages intended to be forwarded to everyone you care about. I usually read and delete these emails because I frankly can't be bothered forwarding the multitude of emails of this nature that I receive. This message, however, struck a chord with me. For the sake of brevity, I will only include the first and last paragraphs of the original email. This will be sufficient.

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift...Thrown away.... Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.

How appropriate. I do make the time to enjoy life whenever possible. Life, however, doesn't always want to cooperate.

Take the other night for example. My husband and I were alone in the house and I told him to put on his shoes and walk with me. He looked at me as if I had just stepped off the mother ship from Mars.

"Walk?", he says. "Where to?"
I said, "To Utica Avenue."
"Why?"
"To get some ice cream."
"But we have ice cream in the freezer."
"Then we'll get some italian ices."
"You wanna walk?"
"Yes. You know, walk, as in put one foot in front of the over and move from point A to point B. You walk to the bus every day, don't you?"
"Yeah, but that's only on the corner."
"Then you can use the exercise."
"But I'm constantly climbing up and down stairs at work and..."

Well, he went on and on, trying to convince me to either stay home and eat ice cream or take the car to Utica Avenue which, by the way, is only about five blocks away from us. I would have none of it. I said I wanted to take a walk on a beautiful summer night with my husband and asked if he had a problem with it. That seemed to shut him up and he grudingly walked with me. You would have thought we were climbing Mt. Fuji the way he was snivelling. Finally, after all that haranguing to convince him to go with me, we get to Ices Queen only to find that the freezers were malfunctioning and all the goods were slushy.

I wouldn't be deterred. We kept on walking until we got to the local bodega and there I bought us some Haagen Dazs ice cream bars. (For those of you who don't know what a bodega is, think of it as a neighborhood grocery store with a spanish accent.) We walked back home, eating ice cream and enjoying the night air in spite of the Universe's attempts to rain on my parade. Sometimes ya just gotta MAKE your moments where you can.

Ballo ergo sum
Always and All Ways,
- Gitana