The Volunteer Cilantro Bed

Oops! I missed a day. Usually it takes a while before I miss a day, but this year I went and did it early. I sort of forgot and sort of didn't. It was one of those: I-don't-really-feel-like-doing-this-thing-I-said-I-would-do-and-it-doesn't-matter-if-I-don't-do-it-so-I'm-going-to-forget-about-it-conveniently. How's that? Do you ever do that? I bet you do.

Do you love this little cilantro patch? Probably not as much as I do. (I still can't understand the cilantro haters---obviously, I'm not one of them.) The cilantro I purposely plant is never this lush. This little bed is so happy, and I really didn't have much to do with it. This is how it happened: some seeds got mulched in this rich spot that I used to compost in. It's a sunny spot so it stays warm, and these tender greens have now made it all the way to November! Granted, with a little help from a cobbled green house: an old piece of plastic floor covering (the kind my grandmother used to cover the high-traffic areas on her rugs) draped over some wire fencing and covered at night with one of our "ghost" sheets.

This is one of my favorite things about gardening: the small discoveries that you make all the time. It's watching life bounding up heedlessly, with or without you. It's this relationship with green things that I've been cultivating all my life. It's a friend of mine, wherever I go, that I always learn from.