One final pull of the last of the evergrowing garden, pulling down on thirteen foot-four inch okra plants, their trunks grown heavy and them beginning to stoop, but their tops still looking like great fertile leaves and parsed across were beautiful yellow flowers reaching up to find the sky and the warmth it brings across. Plenty of big okra, it twisted and popped off from each plant, filled a plastic bag full, called my son, and he came by and took it home.
The jalepeno peppers had made a comeback, their fat green bodies wrapped up with red jalepenos and those that were changing and in between, those that were too small and those that looked like they were bigger than the garden would allow.
The habaneros had made a come back at the last minute. The plant had bloomed a month ago, tiny very weak white flowers, and until today I thought maybe just maybe I could pull some green ones, small and hot. But I was surprised, as red ones, and larger green ones were all hidden under the leaves, waiting on the time to be just right, for the heat to make its way to the edge of the peppers, and for the peppers to make it to the edge of the plant, and for falls frost to put up its finger in a shooshing motion and lay out this day, for me, to claim the last of my garden.
Ralph E Peck
Photo by Ralph Peck
Claremore, Oklahoma
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