[This is Part 3 of my four-part epic poem Next Year in the Garden. SB SM]
Part III–Fall
Next year in the garden, as I pull weeds, I won’t think that I coined the phrase “Nature abhors a vacuum.” (Who did coin that phrase, if not me?).
I won’t wonder why I planted mustard greens.
I will wear a long-sleeve shirt while pruning the roses. Did I already say that?
I won’t start the chipper-shredder “just to see if it will start,” then put through a sunflower stalk “just to see what happens,” especially when I am just killing time before we go out to dinner.
Next year I won’t bore visitors with extensive garden tours, filled with eloquent soliloquies on the virtues of compost. I won’t describe myself as the “poor man’s Eliot Coleman.”
I will pick the chard before it becomes tough and stringy.
I won’t stand speechless before a ten foot sunflower and marvel at the memory of pressing a single seed into the soil with my thumb. I won’t laugh out loud when I see three blue jays hanging upside down on the foot-wide seed pods, possessed by gluttony.
I won’t be disappointed when the Sox fall by the wayside, because I know there is always next year.
Next year in the garden, I will cover at the hint of frost.
I will plant my bulbs and garlic before the ground freezes, but I won’t cover them with mulch until the ground is hard and critter-proof.
I won’t pretend not to be disappointed when my garlic and cherry tomatoes fail to score ribbons at the Tunbridge World’s Fair.
Next year in the garden I won’t break into Joni Mitchell’s “Urge for Going” when I see a chevron overhead.