What the Garden Taught Me About Deadlines

I planted tomatoes in May with a plan: salads by July, sauce by August.

The tomatoes had not read the plan.

Seasons are not sprints

The garden works on its own schedule, indifferent to mine. Things ripen when they ripen. Rain comes or it doesn't. My job is not to manage the garden — it is to show up, pay attention, and respond.

It turns out most of the good things in my life work this way: friendships, writing, bread dough, children. They cannot be hurried, only tended.

Tend, don't manage. Show up, don't schedule.

The sauce happened in September, by the way. It was better for the wait.