Maybe You're Not Late...

Perhaps you simply have a different growing season.

I am so incredibly grateful you are here. Of all the words in the world, you are making time to spend time with these ones. That is such a huge honor.

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As I prep in 90°+ weather here in Florida for installing my fall garden 🌱 🪴, I’ve been thinking a lot about how if I judged my garden by a different garden online, I would think I am totally late… and an epic plant mom failure.

Meet the unexpected powerhouse in my garden… bidens alba. A nutrient-dense prolific grower with potent medicinal properties. Plus, she is so pretty.

But the thing is… in Florida we have multiple growing seasons. When the rest of the world is basking in autumn leaves and fall colors, we enter our second vegetable garden season that would feel like summer to most places north of us.

How many times do we judge ourselves by a place with a different growing season? Or measure our worth by someone else’s metrics? Or reduce our stories down to a follower count or awards wall?

I wrestled that plant above in the picture. She towers over me at 6 feet tall. I initially thought she was an invasive weed.

But as is my custom, I whipped out my plant identifier app and came to find out this plant is a powerhouse of goodness.

So I apologized profusely for not seeing her for who she truly is.

Meet one Bidens Alba, who holds main character energy in my garden like a legend.

Her leaves can be cooked and are more nutritional than spinach. They are often considered a famine food in other parts of the world. Her leaves can also be made into a poultice for pain relief and have antiviral/antimicrobial qualities.

The flowers are edible. The flowers and leaves can be used in teas and infusions. And bidens alba/bidens pilosa is the third largest source of nutrition for Florida pollinators.

The butterflies LOVE her.

(PS, this is just me being a plant nerd… Not medical advice. Want to learn more? Google Bidens Alba/Bidens Pilosa and always consult professionals before using.)

I’ve said for years I want to live in a place with four seasons, and I’m realizing I do—our seasons just look different.

You don’t have to bloom on anyone else’s timetable. You don’t have to measure your becoming by anyone else’s expectations.

The world might be cozying up to autumn, and you're still planting tomatoes and snap peas. That doesn’t mean you are behind. It means you are different.

I’m partly glad to tuck in here for a little longer. I mean… for as long as I’m in Florida, I might as well plant vegetables like I own the place.

Part of wonder for me is the ongoing healing of my relationship to the earth of my body by tending the earth around me.

It would be way easier to write a book about wonder if I was in a place that felt wondrous. But I suspect it would not be nearly as strong of a book.

Writing from a place that challenges me to walk out the words I write and find wonder here anyway… that is the kind of soulful isometrics that create living and literary depth. At least… that's the story I’m going with.

I have no idea whether I will have access to medical care next year or be able to move north, and that unknown is unsettling to say the least.

I'm guessing many of you have unknowns you may be facing too. Please know that you aren’t alone in facing them. Not here. There is always a cup of tea with your name on it.

In the face of things I have no control over, I can still rip out weeds. (Pepper vine, I’m looking at you.) And put garden beds in. And turn my yard into a mini homestead that doubles as my cardio fitness program.

I place seeds into the ground as a radical declaration of hope. Because no one plants a seed without hope to hold onto.

I lean against the gnarled camphor tree and let its twisted branches hold me.

I lay under the bamboo bush that has created a little secret spot surrounded by green.

Eating the things I grow and forage nourishes and heals the landscape in me… and helps me to stay connected in a place filled with deep challenges.

Putting my hands into the soil to nurture the plants as they grow… Well, it’s very difficult to despise the patch of earth that feeds you.

Granted, I still have every plan to move northward as soon as I can, but until those plans come together, I don’t want to waste the seasons of the land where I live now.

So, my friend. Consider this the next time you feel rushed or like you are falling behind:

Maybe you’re not late at all. Maybe you just have a different growing season. And that is a beautiful thing.

I can’t wait to send out tomorrow’s Wonder Drop to our Prompt & Ponder community. Again, it is one of those words that hold worlds in it, and I can’t wait to share it with you.

Also, I’m so curious:

How might understanding you are simply in a different growing season lift the weight of expectation and reduce some of the stress you are under?

Drop into the comments here:

All my love,