For

everything there is a season, says the Old Testament

preacher, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is

planted.

Consider

with me the seasons of vegetables, now approaching

"plucking up" time. Swiss chard is my

inspiration du jour.

I usually

plant a row or two of that crisp delicacy, and this year,

inspired by the splendor in Kroger's produce section, I

planted red chard - rhubarb chard, the Burpee's seed

folks call it.

It fairly

leaped from the ground, and by late May, I had a

spectacular stand of green leaves veined in crimson, with

a few aberrant plain ones for contrast. I cut it to

encourage continued production, and carried a heaping

colander for Dave to admire, lamenting what steaming

would do to it.

"You'd

better never raise chickens if you can't stand to cook

vegetables," he commented drily, turning back to the

defective spa heater on his workbench.

He's right,

of course. I no longer even buy chicken unless he

insists.

The great

joy of a vegetable garden, my fellow dirt-daubers will

agree, is watching it progress from crumbly dirt to rows

of brave two-leaved seedlings to young plants crowding

each other until flowers appear, then the first swelling

of the fruit, and at last, harvest time - which in

our climate can be year-round.

This year

spring made good her promises in my tiny fenced patch,

with enough spinach and lettuce for early salads, and now

the chard, and a few little tomatoes and bell peppers

already set on the stem. In one corner, potato foliage

thrives and in the herb bed, parsley has never been so

lush.

A row of

carrots wintered over near the fence. I left them there

when I discovered a black swallow-tailed butterfly laying

eggs on them in March. Fascinated, we watched her larval

offspring munch the ferny leaves, growing fatter and

prettier from one day to the next - all yellow and

black and green - until suddenly the carrot stems

were bare shafts. I threw netting over the row to protect

the caterpillars from hungry birds, but one day every one

was gone, transformed, we hope, into hidden chrysalises.

My

absolutely favorite flower - that of the

crooked neck squash - greets me in golden exuberance

each morning, usually host to a drowsy bumblebee or two.

Yesterday the first squash demanded to be picked.

The only

disappointments: for the third year, the snowpeas are

apathetic, barely off the ground. And something has been

digging up my beans. Only a half-dozen pole beans have

begun to climb the tomato cages I put up for support, but

the rest, plus all the bush beans I've sowed, vanished as

quickly as I planted (and replanted) them. An empty hole,

an inch deep, marked the spot where each had been. I

suspect chipmunks. Brown thrashers, maybe.

I've

thwarted the varmints this time, whoever they are. After

soaking the seeds overnight as usual, I planted them deep

and pressed an inverted glass or jelly jar over each, at

least an inch into the soil.

So far so

good. An added benefit, I believe, will be that the scant

sunlight that reaches my shaded garden will be magnified

One of the

lessons life teaches, if we live long enough, is that

those things we have to wait for are the better for our

waiting. I'm now poised between late-middle-age and

downright old age, at that stage of life when the days,

weeks, months, seasons, swirl by so quickly they blur

together and I sometimes have to make a conscious effort

to remember where in the year I am.

It seems to

me, no longer involved in school schedules, that the

school year just began. Yet now people are talking about

graduation and summer jobs and vacation (although I know

that for some, it seemed this particular school year

would never end).

I'd be

positively delighted if Someone In Authority announced we

are going to have Christmas only every five years.

Christmases come too close together when they are annual

events. How wonderful it would be to wait, to plan, to

look forward to that joyous season as we did when we were

children.

As one

grows older - old! - the pace of time becomes

even more joltingly irregular. From Christmas to

Christmas seems only days, but there's an eternity

between the first hard green marble on the vine and a

ripe homegrown tomato, sliced on mayonnaise-slathered

white bread.

Refrigeration

and modern marketing may make it possible to buy any

vegetable any day of the year in this country, but

waiting for their natural season enhances the flavor like

no condiment can possibly do.

Me, I'll

wait. Grown at home or bought locally: strawberries,

Vidalia onions, tomatoes, blueberries, chard - did I

mention Vidalias? - these are a few of my favorite

things-worth-waiting-for.

Corn on the

cob, for heaven's sake! The water should be boiling

before one snaps the ear off the stalk, a feat that can

be executed only in season.

Besides

better eating, buying food that hasn't had to travel far

supports the local economy and reduces energy

expenditures.

And while

I'm waiting, I'll plant enough parsley and carrots to let

hungry butterfly babies eat their fill in my garden. For

them, too, there is a season....

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