In the cool afternoon sunshine, we harvest potatoes and remove tomato plants. It’s time to pull these roots from the soil and move on to the next turn of the season. This fall, I observe a sense of catharsis in the stage of senescence, a releasing of the tie between these plants and I. As I pull them from the ground, my responsibility for their life is uprooted as well. My emotions linked to whether or not the plant suffers frost or pest damage or produces mouth watering flavor are relinquished, and I’m simply thankful for it’s life and all it has taught me from seed to seed.

~Joy