Hope springs eternal in the gardener’s heart. At the end of June – a month later than I had planned, but delayed by weeks of cold, wet weather – I planted onions and potatoes held in cold storage, seeds of carrots, parsnips, squashes, melons, cucumbers, zucchini, beans, peas, corn, and pumpkins, and bedding plants of tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages, and peppers I’d babied outdoors on our porch for a month. Out of curiosity, I planted seeds of gourds and ornamental corns, as well as the rooted stems of sweet potatoes. All these cast upon the soil at the mercies of the weather.

The thermometer of our Nova Scotian summer seemed stuck on ‘cool,’ and the precipitation index on ‘wet.’ Germination in the garden was poor, haphazard, except for old reliables like peas and beans, and some rather stonishing Straight Eight cucumbers. I despaired. Then August burst upon us like a gift from the tropics. Day after day of heat and sun coaxed laggards from the soil and fueled that mighty botanical factory of photosynthesis, urging shoots into rapid growth.

Still, summer’s end approached. The harvest moon waxed and waned in mid-September, with all I had to show for my efforts being a half dozen bags of frozen vegetables – beans, peas, broccoli. In my gardener’s heart, I knew frost could strike at any time, yet every part of me strained toward more weeks of warmth, as though my seeking would cause it to be.

Good weather when needed – like good fortune – is a gift gratefully accepted one day at a time, one vegetable harvested at a time, one fruit preserved at a time. The days of summer usually granted to July were this year transferred to September. Vegetables flourished, pumping out blossoms and fruits as though half the summer yet remained. My gardener’s heart fought along with them, but we suffered the blows of late blight to tomatoes, the disappointment of the first frost on September 28, the regret of immature fruits that, like a life ended too young, would never see maturity.

This morning, I cleared my large garden and salad garden of all but hardy vegetables, herbs, and my ornamental corn, the cobs of which I still hope will ripen into kernels richly hued to shades of purple, orange, and green. Once more, we have sunshine and heat, this Thanksgiving long weekend offering three days of gloriously warm weather to feed our souls and allow us to drink in the beauties of autumn. And my harvest? It is far more than ever I expected. God is good. Life is good. Happy Thanksgiving!