Grow Faster

There is a picture on my dad’s work desk of me when I was six standing in a 6’x6’ mud pit which was to be our future garden. The picture captured a father daughter bonding experience, me in overalls, with dirt caked on my knees, a couple dirt splotches on my face, standing on my tiptoes to be the same height as the rake that I was clutching proudly next to me. It’s a simple picture, but to me it marks my first time ever interacting with cultivating a garden or caring for something so vulnerable. I remember my naturally impatient six-year-old nature of expecting to plant the seeds and the next day a tomato would spring up. There were days when I would see a small green bulb, marking the beginning of a tomato and want to pick it. Patience was not my forte to say the least. So when we planted our tomatoes, basil and peppers today in the garden and we were joking around about whose plants will grow first. I remembered back to the picture on my Dad’s desk and my first garden, filled with strawberries, tomatoes and cucumbers. How there were days when I wanted to measure the vines of the tomato plants to see if it was growing. So hopefully the frost will not get our little, vulnerable plants, but with time and patience I am looking forward to that first mozzarella, tomato and basil sandwich I will make when our plants are full-grown.