The mid-June chapter in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle focuses on the context – and importance – of organic, community-grown gardens. She situates this conversation in mid-June, because that is when she takes a quick breather from tending her Southwestern Virginia garden to visit friends in New England. The chapter highlights the organic, community-based farm run by friends of friends in Massachusetts. I am thankful to be reading this book right now. I am thankful to be writing about vegetables and gardens right now. I am thankful for thinking about our food, our earth, and community right now. It grounds me in the truest sense of the word ground.

Thoughts About Mid-June

Mid-June is the time right before most of the fruits and vegetables are fully ripe in a Virginia garden. The full force of Summer has yet to be felt. It is a deep breath before long days. It is a time to take a deep breath to look around and take stock. Before tomatoes are plenty. Before watermelon is its sweetest. Before the corn tops off. Before potatoes can be dug and beans can be snapped.

Even in the midst of it all, especially in the midst of it all, what we eat – where it comes from, where we get it, how we prepare it – matters. Returning to the seasons, to the rhythm of the earth, calms my heart. Thinking about ripening and blooming, and their promise, seems the opposite of violence and pain. Power shown through beauty and peace. The sound of soil being turned and the mist of morning before the day’s burn. That is mid-June.

Thoughts About Trust

The closest I have ever been to growing my own food was my grandparent’s garden. They tended several acres on my father’s family land in the South End of Louisville, Kentucky when I was growing up. Summers meant vegetables from the garden. Their neighborhood was an international melting pot with people of all ages, colors, and races. The garden was a community hub behind the house in which my father grew up. It fed people in the neighborhood. People would gravitate to my grandparent’s garage to buy baskets of tomatoes and other vegetables. My grandparents provided vegetables for the neighborhood grocery. My grandparents took orders at church and delivered what people needed the following week. They provided vegetables to the neighborhood food pantry, and to sick friends and family, too.

When Kingsolver invokes the notion of trust, I understand it deeply from the relationships I saw as a child in the garden. The garden was on land owned by my father’s family for generations. Food was about community. Community was about trust. Trust was built through tending, both of the vegetables and of the relationships that surrounded the garden. Trust was built year after year. As the corn grew and the tomatoes ripened, people would start to come around. There was an ebb and flow to the garden that felt deep and abiding. The opposite of shallow and fleeting. The opposite of noisy and frenetic. I live in a big city now, and still remember how it felt to be in the garden. I remember how it felt to bring in vegetables and prepare them for dinner – the sheer immediacy and sweetness felt powerful. I remember how there was a perfect moment – a when – to pick things. To understand that was a great secret I learned from my grandfather. There is also a right way – a how – to pick things. How to snap beans without hurting the plant. How to dig potatoes without stabbing one. When and how are garden wisdom that apply to life.

Mid-June is right before everything happens. It is the calm before the storm. It is right before neighbors start to come around. It is when you haven’t eaten a ripe tomato for months. Writing about mid-June, in the midst disconnection and chaos, reminds me of my first connection to the earth. To the fact that our earth, our ground, stays on course. To the miracle that happened in my grandparents garden for many years.