Lessons from the Garden: Lesson Five

Lesson Five: To Everything, A Season

Solomon once famously remarked, "to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven;" later, the Byrds, perhaps more famously, added "Turn, turn, turn!"

My experiments with new crops in the garden this year have taught me that each vegetable and herb has its own season for harvest. The green beans were the first to offer up their fruits for consumption. Now it's a little too hot for the beans, and they've stopped fruiting. (I'm told that this is only temporary, and when the weather begins to cool back down they will resume production.) Some of the tomatoes are waxing red; a few have already been harvested. The eggplants, which are absolutely heat-loving and do not do well when even nighttime temperatures drop below the 70s, will be next. Once the squash plants begin their yield, they remain prolific throughout the summer and well into autumn, and remain as feracious as (insert joke about highly reproductive demographic-of-your-choice here.) Basil is perpetually bearing leaves, so its harvest season is basically all year in sunny southern Cal, but when temperatures get too warm the plants bolt (or go to seed). At that point they are more focused on producing seeds, and less intent on making leaves, so the leaves are both smaller and fewer. I have already pulled up many of the carrots, but have left several in the ground to increase and just "keep" there until I'm ready for them.

By extension, I have decided that people likewise each have their own seasons of life; it is as foolish to expect them to follow one another's life-schdules as it would be to anticipate green beans and eggplants bearing fruit coincidentally. Thus, it's okay not to marry when everyone else is getting married (it's even okay not to marry at all). It's okay not to be dating when all one's friends are dating, and it's equally okay not to be engaged when all one's friends are engaged. None is bound to a great cosmic timetable; none ought feel constrained to drink from his neighbor's cup. I think the vegetables are telling me to lay aside my neurosis about catching up or being "left behind" and take things at my own pace.


Moral of the story:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
Atime to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.