Pleasant surprises: a garden's greatest gift

It's nearly summer, and I spent Monday night worrying about frost. According to the forecast, the overnight low was supposed to be 32. Our average last frost date is June 15, but like a lot of gardeners, every spring I convince myself that that date is a worst-case scenario and of course it won't happen this year and the one good thing about climate change is that we'll all be a zone warmer and sure I can fit another six pack of tomatoes in. Yes, we gardeners are often delusional.

So it was with some trepidation that I got up Tuesday morning and ventured out to water the garden before work. I expected curled, frost-blackened leaves. I expected to mourn the untimely passing of  my tomatoes, basil, peppers, squash, and everything else I shouldn't have planted so soon. I steeled myself for the carnage. I stepped warily over the threshold and into… paradise. The morning was cool, the air perfectly still and fresh. And there was no sign of Jack Frost nipping at my nightshades. Something else was missing too--the hordes of grasshoppers that have plagued my garden since the nights started warming a few weeks ago. There were a few hopping here and there, but the Biblical plague was MIA. I can only guess that it must have been cold enough to drive them back--but not cold enough to damage tender summer veggies.

I don't think I've ever enjoyed watering as much as I did on that cool, perfect almost-summer morning. I even had a pair of hummingbirds for company. Mornings like this are why I garden: why I spend weekends shoveling manure, why I fight my way through gale-force winds to plant and water and weed, why I strain my back moving rocks to build raised beds, and why I spend half my salary on soil amendments and irrigation supplies and plants. My time in the garden was short--I do have to work for a living, and I had an 8:30 meeting--but that half hour or so in my own little paradise let me start my day with beauty and peace.