...if you have a backyard and a kitchen, this blog might be for you!

a chronicle of tips and recipes on everything from gardening to canning and baking your produce, even if you're planted in suburbia...in fact, especially if you are planted in suburbia.



Monday, June 27, 2011

What the Snow Peas Taught Me






















The garden...such an illustration of life lessons if we but allow it to be!

I walked out to the pea patch today, a place now aged to a strange mix of wild growth and initial dying away. In its fullness, this plant is quite different from others in the garden. Unlike tomatoes and zucchinis this plant hides its fruit. Even Garden Helper took note of it--saying that harvesting snow peas is much like a game he plays where he hunts for objects hidden in pictures. Who would have guessed all these snow peas were nestled in those creeping vines?





And if I pause and meditate on this one, I find an even larger truth ripe to learn, for when I first go to harvest, I pick all I see and tell myself I am finished. But just a couple of steps around the plant grants me a new perspective on bounty always there but strangely unseen, hidden from my eye. Suddenly another cluster of peas comes into view, soI pick them, too. Furthermore, after I step away to inspect the cucumbers, pick some late lettuce and spot-weed the carrots, I wander back across the garden passing those pea plants only to discover even MORE sweet pods that I somehow missed while intentionally harvesting only moments before.



Yes, I could meditate long on the lessons offered through just one hour spent somewhere near the pea patch!






Happy thinking!









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