The garden this morning (IV)

"For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." — Isaiah 55:12

The garden has crossed some line I cannot name. Last week it was growing. This week it is producing. There is a difference, and the difference is that the beans are coming in faster than I pick them and the squash is setting fruit on vines that do not know when to stop and the tomatoes are heavy and green and hard and patient and I can see the summer in them even though they are not ready yet.

The blackberries along the fence are starting to show color. They are still mostly red, tight and sour, but there are a few that have gone dark and soft and I picked one this morning and it was warm from the sun and tasted the way June tastes if June had a taste, which is sweet and a little wild and not quite enough.

I watered at five-thirty this morning. The heat has been steady and the ground does not hold water the way it did a month ago. Everything I give it goes straight down and the plants drink it and by noon they are asking again. That is the way of it in late June. The garden takes everything and gives everything and does not apologize for either.

The volunteer tomato from the compost pile has set its first fruit. Small and green and hard. I did not plant it and I did not ask for it and here it is, doing what it was going to do regardless.

Lord, let what was not planted be welcome.

Ruby keeps a collection of prayers at her kitchen table. You can find them here.