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| Asparagus, first year, gone to seed--you can see the rest sprouting in the distance |
The asparagus is growing. I wrote about
it last year, when we rooted the year-old octopus-shaped slips of
plants, as a symbol of permanence. If we plant asparagus, that means
we're staying. Perennials mean that one is perennially rooted in one
place.
Or so I believe. The asparagus is
going to seed, as it's supposed to in its second year, although I've
been desperate to sample some. I tried one bite, raw, of a piece the
cat knocked off.
Maybe what I like about impermanence is
how its a blank slate on which to draw. The unknown elements in the
future.
A farm is a new adventure each season.
Based on three years of experience now, I still have no idea what to
predict. Certain crops will fail utterly. Others we will drown in
and have to throw away. It's impossible to know what will succeed
and what will fail, but we have to keep trying, with each, with
utmost faith.
The perennial garden grows every
year—this year I'm able to identify handily the jerusalem artichoke
and echinacea coming up, and the rhubarb is sprouting little alien
brains by the day. I may even get a pie this year. The fiddleheads
are going gangbusters, and I still haven't made my way out to collect
any. The rhythm grows familiar.
Last year at this time I was nesting
the asparagus roots in the ground. It's almost a prayer, planting
things like that, entrusting them to this speck of earth. Trusting
myself to husband them. Trusting they will bear fruit in time, in
two years. Next year, we can eat asparagus omelets all spring.
And still the unknown beckons.
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