We dug potatoes yesterday, a chore Lee looks forward to. I run the fork while she kneels on the ground snatching up tubers. She grins like a kid on an Easter egg hunt, squealing now and then. Every spud is a trophy. They were small this year, most the size of duck eggs. Much of the summer was extraordinarily dry and our watering efforts were half-hearted, so the yield matched expectations. But we have enough— the shelves of the root cellar are full.
In September the sweet corn is tucked away in the freezer and the pantry is stocked with green beans, pickles, and tomatoes diced and juiced and sauced. Labeled jars line the shelves like rank and file soldiers. Onions and garlic bulbs are fully cured, kraut and hot sauces fermented. A year’s worth of goodness lies at the ready.
And still the garden lives. Peppers and tomatoes and sweet potatoes will do what they do until frost shuts them down. If we were better gardeners we’d have fall crops of carrots and greens, cabbage and broccoli. But by late season we’re buried in abundance and our enthusiasm wanes, so weeds have their way.
The giant ragweed and pokeweed hide the compost piles and garden table. The smartweed and pigweed and foxtail claim every neglected space. And as wildness encroaches crickets sing, butterflies flit about the zinnias, finches feast on ripened sunflowers.
The September garden is both disorderly and inspiring, reminding us that our efforts to impose order are temporary. The garden gives us tomatoes, sweet corn, and green beans, but a lapse in tending invites a riot of growth, diverse and aggressive with a beauty of its own.
Abundance extends beyond the garden. In early September there were thousands of demonstrations to celebrate workers over billionaires. A million seconds pass in 11 days, but a billion requires 32 years. It’s a big number, particularly when it refers to money. And the idea that a person or corporation can lay claim to so much is absurd. It is the epitome of capitalism gone berserk, inequality at its worst.
Collectively, billionaires control nearly 50 percent of the world’s wealth. Most fail to acknowledge that their fortunes were made by the working class and use their money for political leverage or personal power. Some are directly linked to environmental and social woes, standing at the helm of corporations responsible for deforestation, oil and mineral extraction, sprawling development. They are consumed by an inextinguishable drive for more profit. Always more. With the ability to shape the world’s response to climate change and social justice, it seems most are more interested in bigger yachts and mansions.
MacKinzie Scott, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, is a standout. In four years, she gave away 14 of her 38 billion dollar divorce settlement. Sixteen hundred organizations benefited— community colleges, food banks, women’s shelters, racial justice groups. No fanfare, no philanthropic galas, just quiet, radical giving to organizations dedicated to making the world better. Her approach mirrors the generosity in nature: seeds scattered, harvests shared, growth without expectation of return. I can imagine MacKinzie planting a vegetable garden, getting her hands in the dirt, growing greens, tomatoes, and carrots— a woman grounded in reason and compassion despite her fairy tale wealth.
The other day I saw an AI clip of the White House occupant dressed in torn trousers and a ragged jacket. He was astride an old tractor, harvesting potatoes, and I’d never seen him look more respectable. A garden humbles a man, providing food while illuminating broader planetary concerns and obligations. Nature gives freely while greed and hoarding, with rare exception, are human tendencies.
In September, with the pantry and freezer full, we let the seeds of chance have their way. In the treetops a loose gathering of kingbirds pause on their journey south. A toad hops from under a clod of soil. Asters and tickseeds bloom. Locusts sing.
Life in its infinite forms reminds us we are all in this together. We are outnumbered, but fully capable of damaging environments supporting all life. Our efforts to displace and control are temporary but causing long term harm. A highly functional living planet awaits our next move.