I planted the herbs on a grey morning. The rain would come in the afternoon and do the watering for me. The herbs went into containers — pot by pot, composed. The lemon thyme and its variegated leaves next to the silver, velvety sage. The slender lime-green lemongrass behind them. Piccolino basil in a pot of its own, because it grows into a sphere and earns the room. Lavender on its own as well. The pots are meant to be looked at as much as harvested from. By early fall they will be tea and pesto and salad and soap. And herbs.
Gardening is the practice of expecting. You put a thing in the ground because you expect it to grow.
I planted a dwarf nectarine tree two years ago, in an area where they are widely believed not to grow. I like to push the zones — the varieties bred to survive the coldest zones are rarely the tastiest ones. Last summer the tree gave us two nectarines. We watched them for weeks. When there are only two, you watch them. One morning there was only one. My partner went looking — he does not even particularly like nectarines, but he knew how long I had been waiting. He found the missing one in the strawberry bed, full of teeth marks. A dwarf tree puts the fruit at rabbit height. One for me and one for the rabbit. The one I ate was soft and juicy and sweet. Only a little smaller than the ones at the market. Better the way fruit picked a few minutes ago always is. Next time I am not moving until I have eaten and made preserves and fruit leathers and enjoyed the fruits of my labour. Literally.
The first local asparagus is at the market this week. There is asparagus in grocery stores every week of the year now, most of it travelled a long way to be there, tasting like it. Part of the practice is letting the seasons actually arrive — waiting for the asparagus, knowing it is coming, recognising it when it does. A job often does not change between February and July. The rooms in a home are the same temperature in every season. The kitchen is one of the places a person can still feel the year turning, if she lets it.
The hummingbirds will arrive this week. The flowers they prefer are not yet in bloom, so until the pineapple sage catches up there will be a feeder out for them.
— Catherine