It is now June in my backyard, and the burgeoning promise of fruit borne of hard work and careful planning is almost impossible to tolerate any longer. Somehow unobserved by the watchful eyes of my neighbors and I, our plants have gone from puny seedlings to thriving shrubs, now climbing up trellises and spilling over cages. Their flowers are perhaps the most difficult to stand. Seemingly everywhere, they shout for our attention, but upon closer examination remind us that they are only a teaser for what lies ahead.
And while the agony of waiting for seeds to turn back into fruit is something that I’m confident even the most novice of gardeners has experienced; I write this post not to empathize, but to point out how this patient optimism illustrates the abstract nature of time. Think about it, why would we even bother planting a vegetable garden at all if it weren’t for the basic assumption that our efforts in the present will result in an actualized harvest in the future? After all, gardening is not an exercise in immediate gratification – a tomato seed does not seem to be the same as a tomato – and if it is tomatoes we crave in April, why the hell are we wasting our time planting seeds when we could be at the market buying them all along?! Instead, I believe we go through the act of gardening precisely because as gardeners we are inherently aware of this abstraction (whether you know it or not), and it is for this reason that we plan out our gardens in view of fruit-laden shrubs.
This is the notion that occurs to me while puttering around sparsely planted beds throughout the spring. However, I prefer to take this course of thought a step further and not just stop at the logical considerations of how large or bountiful my plants will be at the height of the growing season, but to the experiential results as well. When I observe my garden in May and June, I not only see vibrant green foliage that will soon hold tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers, but also imagine fresh Salad Caprese and roasted sweet peppers. I smell the charcoal smoke of backyard barbeques and imagine the excitement of a grand harvest dinner.
If within our gardens we can come to accept that time is abstract – that not only the present is a reality but also the future – why shouldn’t we carry this notion over to the world at large? We get so hung up on how things appear to us today, that we forget to imagine the reality of what lies ahead. Where a person can see only the existing blight of urban decay, I suggest considering the potential that such places might have with just a bit of hope and planning. It seems far too valuable a lesson not to be extruded, but all too often even the most thoughtful gardeners look at the world around them and see nothing but despair. This is precisely why it is so important we remember what we have been taught by nature, that regardless of the subject matter, we must plant today’s seeds with tomorrow’s harvest in mind.
