Notes from an Unruly Garden
If you listen to casual conversations about gardening, you’d think the whole thing begins in May and wraps up neatly by Labor Day.
People love the glossy summer fantasy. The overflowing baskets, the crisp cucumbers, the postcard-perfect raised beds. We celebrate visible abundance and act as though growth is a clean, predictable transaction.
Except anyone who actually gets dirt (I know...it's "soil" but sometimes...dirt is appropriate) under their fingernails knows that living systems don't care about your neat little plans.
Last year, my bean harvest was a bust. I planted what was labeled as a modest French marigold mix. Instead, some vigorous, woody giant took over the bed. The root systems were so aggressive they bullied my string beans right out of the soil. I was furious.
So this year, I vowed to pay ruthless attention.
I pulled every volunteer marigold on sight. For my beans, I reached for a packet of Blue Lake Stringless. I convinced myself I could keep everything neat, orderly, and within its assigned lane.
The soil had other ideas.
The climbers took one look at my careful boundaries and completely showed out. They wandered across the bed, scaled over the bush beans, and reached for the sky. Before I knew it, I was out in the midday heat scrambling to lash together a three-pole bamboo teepee just to keep them from pulling down the entire bed.
It wasn't the layout I had drawn up. It required extra sweat, extra timber, and constant surveillance - good grief, right?
And yet, despite the chaos, those unruly vines produced like crazy. They fed me for weeks. Then, right toward the tail end of the season, the weather shifted, and bean rust crept in.
The leaves speckled, the vines tired out, and the vigor faded.
You know what I did? I didn’t sit there feeling unsuccessful.
Nope, I couldn't wait to rip them out.
A few weeks ago, I went out into the beds and pulled down every last tangled vine. Hauled them away, cleared the debris, and swept the dirt clean. Some things deplete rather than nourish, and you cannot demand endless production from a system pushed beyond what it can sustain.
But that empty soil didn't stay vacant for long. While most folks think the season is over, I tucked kale and tatsoi directly into the cleared soil. As the autumn chill settles in, those cold-hardy greens are quietly establishing deep roots.
Standing there with dirty gloves, looking at that cleared patch of earth, I was hit squarely:
Growth isn't a straight line that peaks in July.
The beans weren’t a failure because they became unruly, or because the rust ended them. They were enormously productive.
And our past chapters don't have to be mistakes just because they didn't last forever.
A season can be successful and still be over.
Sometimes the most faithful work you can do is clearing the beds so the next quiet green can take root.
Grow well,
Janine, MPH
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