Garden Lessons

Two lessons from the garden this week: one philosophical, and one practical.

The first lesson has to do with personal growth: I bought a bunch of heirloom tomato seedlings in early May and planted them at the same time. At the time, they were all roughly the same size. Some two months later, one of them--"Nyagous"--towers over all the rest. Here's the point: that tomato plant didn't get so big and healthy in a day; rather, day by day, it did something better than the rest and, over the course of two months, that modest, step by step improvement made a huge difference in the final result. Moral of the story: it's a mistake to think, as I often do, that one can suddenly break out and do great things. In reality, one's life and character are determined by the slow and steady accumulation of good decisions, daily effort, and getting the little stuff right. The little things add up.

The practical lesson has to do with aphids, or some tiny aphid-like fly that seems to have infested my beloved tomato plants (except for the Nyagous, by the way: go figure). I ran to the garden store in desperation, and they said that the only option to "save my plants" was a pesticide called "Sevin," which, from what I've read, is the equivalent of releasing a neutron bomb in the garden plot: killing not only aphids, but pretty much everything else for miles, from earthworms to stray reindeer. Bad idea. After further reading dug up recommendations that included killing them one by one(!) and using an old nylon to dust them with flour(!!) I stumbled upon this revolutionary suggestion: blast them off with a jet of water from the garden hose. Incredulous, I tried it, and I'll be jiggered if it didn't work just fine. Cheap. Simple. Effective. Did it wipe 'em out? Nah, but it certainly knocked 'em for a loop, which is all I wanted in the first place. As for the rest, my garden is full of ladybugs, damsel and dragon flies, and they know just what to do with a wandering aphid ...

(Photo courtesy of AIA GUY..Rwood on Flickr; original available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wood-n-photography/2586365199/.)