Hands for Harvesting

"Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest." John 4:35
As I’ve mentioned earlier: Green thumb, have I not. I am perpetually astonished each and every year when the scraggly seedlings grow exponentially. Gourd vines stretch beyond the stone walls, out across the yard. Watermelon vines wrap around the runt pepper plant, hiding it from sight. Tomato vines rocket between the wiry tee pee barrier. Sweet potato vines snake up the wooden fence boards and spy into our neighbor’s yard. I find myself pruning the garden every few weeks. Not so much pulling weeds, as untangling the knotted vines.
Our garden is not the product of a landscape architect. It is, rather, the product of joyful souls lugging a cart through the Lowe’s Garden Center. The girls always pick their crops. No thought is given to rhyme or reason. To spacing and timing, water and sunlight needs. The seedlings are chosen individually based on little more than proximity to the shopping cart. This year’s crop: Thai pepper, blueberry bush, petunia, watermelon, pumpkin, cherry tomatoes, sweet potatoes, thyme, mint, basil, bell pepper. One lone sunflower seed grew to enormous proportions and presided over the eclectic entanglement below.
The kids have harvested watermelons, pumpkins and gourds galore. The Bug picks fresh mint before dinner to flavor our iced tea. The spices have found their way into spaghetti sauces, and the tomatoes into lovely salads. Not everything survived the constant brutal heat of the Kentucky summer. Sporadic rain alternating with flood water.
This afternoon is sweet potato harvest. I’m sure there’s a simple way to tell the proper time to dig up potatoes. But as some potatoes are actually poking through the ground, I think this afternoon will suffice. The Bug and the Pea will fill the Red Ryder wagon full of shovels. They pull the wagon out to the garden. They immediately abandon the trowels in lieu of ungloved hands. They dive into the soil, with gleaming eyes, seeking buried treasures…