By the time the first frost arrives each year, I am ready to welcome it. Managing a garden, even a small one, is more work than it seems, a fact I discovered within a few weeks of my first gardening season. First, there is digging, fertilizing, and planting. Then, once the plants are growing, there is watering, weeding, and bugs.
Weeds and bugs are relentless. Once I left a weed near the front door to see how quickly it would grow–a few inches over a day. And while rain is to be wished for, it always brings a new wave of weeds.
Bugs are a constant. There is no such thing as getting rid of them, at least not without a lot of poison, which I refuse to use. So, we battle all summer until we attain a strained equilibrium where I give up, and they do whatever they wish until the frost comes. Frost kills the flowers and the bugs, but hey—you can’t have everything.
This year, many plants never made it into the ground; I watered little and did even less weeding. Thanks to the guys who cut the backyard, the front hasn’t reverted completely to primordial forest—but it is getting there. And so, now that it’s time to say goodbye, I’m happy to do so.
This season has been different. Being unable to do much work in the garden, I don’t have sore knees or a stiff back from digging and carrying. And having done less work in the yard, I haven’t seen the weeds or bugs up close frequently enough to count them as enemies. But I know they are there. And as a result of my absence, no doubt they’ve been partying like it’s 1999.
The frost has come on multiple days over the last few weeks, and more is promised next week. Soon, the magentas, lavenders, yellows, and indigos will fade and disappear. As the palette shifts to browns, taupes, and tans, the rowdiness of the bugs and weeds will end.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.