The Sunflowers are Taking Over the Asylum

My sunflowers are taller than I am.

My whole garden thrived unbelievably while I was in Kauai. When I returned, I had a bumper crop of green tomatoes and peppers that are just waiting for the sun to ripen them. The corn was trying to keep up with the sunflowers. The basil had multiplied. And the sweetpeas, which the garden curmudgeon told me would never grow at this time of year, had exploded with pods.

My garden neighbor and good friend M cared for my plot as lovingly as I do while I was away, and it showed. Except for a few problems with the sweetpeas trying to strangle the pepper plants while his back was turned, he reported no problems.

I did get one big surprise - the sunflowers I planted are a brooding brownish-orange, not yellow. I simply must start looking at the seed packages! But I think I like them even better for being different.

Yesterday I gathered the first bounty from the garden - fresh basil, sweetpeas, the first open sunflower, a basketful of lavender and rosemary branches, and a single yellow rose snitched from a communal rosebush. My apartment is filled with flowers that cost me nothing but time well-spent.

I joined the community garden almost without thinking in early March when I was grieving the departure of my friend K. At the time, I had no idea how centering, how healing, how amazing it would be. I feel grounded in my little 10-foot plot of land in a way I could never imagine.