When you garden, be prepared for beauty to strike at any moment. Being struck by bolts of beauty is a hazard of vegetable gardening. Maybe humans aren’t designed to handle so much beauty. It might be why they flee the countryside and flock to the cities, to get away from being overwhelmed by nature’s beauty. Nature is unrelenting when it comes to stimulating the senses with beauty. It might be safer for the psyche to live in a high-rise, far from nature, with only other high-rises to look at out your window.

This morning I went into one of the hoop houses to tend melon plants, and was awed by the melon leaves. During the night, the melons had shed excess water through the fringes of their leaves. The leaves were fringed with wet diamonds. You don’t see such beauty at Tifanys or Cartier. You can’t buy this beauty. It’s in the garden waiting for you, for free. You just have to have the fortitude to handle such unexpected beauty at any time when you grow vegetables. Perhaps I should wear dark shades when I garden so I don’t succumb to overstimulation. How much rapture can an individual tolerate? There must be a limit. If these posts suddenly cease, you’ll know I have succumbed and am lying lifeless between vegetable beds, a victim of nature’s beauty.