Garlic Underground

I harvested my garlic today. Dug it from the crumbly soil and shook what I could of the dirt from its roots. It felt so satisfying after the long wait. What began as a handful of heads has transformed into a harvest that should keep us going for months. Now it hangs pegged and drying on our verandah like strange washing, drying in the summer air.

I love garlic. So many dishes would be lost without its complex flavours: rich and mellow, or spicy and astringent, depending on how you prepare it. And the taste when it is pulled fresh from the ground is a revelation.

But back in autumn, as I pushed plump cloves into the ground it was difficult to walk away, it felt wrong. Counterintuitive. Like a waste. Like an abandonment.

And then the waiting. From the first peeping of grassy promise in winter, to that fade to papery brown as summer approached. I found it difficult to watch what seemed like death, that receding green.

But it’s not the visible parts of the garlic I’m aiming for, but the unseen, the underground, what is maturing beneath the soil.

Knowing when to let something go, to allow it to die so that a slower, better thing can grow: that is a special kind of wisdom. The garden grows thick with metaphor.

So today, I’ve been contemplating the garlic and myself. Drawing wisdom from the garden. Considering where in life I might need to let go, to step back, to allow something I no longer need to die. Asking what I want as my personal harvest. I’m thinking about the long view, about what might be growing unseen, awaiting its time.