Green Blessings

From most accounts, the Pilgrims weren’t exactly savvy gardeners when they arrived in the New World. Native people had to teach them about cultivating corn, pumpkins, squash, and beans in a climate very different from England’s, or they might have starved while walking around in those funky shoes and weird hats.

But at least the Pilgrims got one thing right. After a long sea voyage and a rocky start, they decided to rest for awhile and express their thanks for nature’s bounty.

Tomorrow, like many American families, we’ll gather round our dinner table and give thanks for the blessings of faith, family, friends, and home. But today, I’m playing pilgrim by making a short list of just my garden blessings:



I’m grateful for the Brown Turkey fig tree in my yard that provides us with sweet fruit for preserves.

I’m thankful for rain.

I appreciate the cherry-pie perfume of summer heliotropes.

I welcome the bats that wing through our neighborhood in the evenings, snapping up mosquitoes.

I’m grateful for non-profit seed exchanges, like Seed Savers of Decorah, Iowa, which helps preserve heirloom fruits, flowers, and vegetables for a new generation of gardeners.

I’m grateful for sun-ripened tomatoes that taste so good on bread spread with mayonnaise and a little salt and pepper.

I appreciate Plant-A-Row-For-The-Hungry, a volunteer organization that helps gardeners share their produce with the less fortunate.

I’m thankful that we gardeners keep finding exciting and new plants to grow, thanks to hybridizers, developers, growers, and researchers.

Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, why not take a moment to count your own green blessings?

Happy Thanksgiving!
Lynn