Michael H. Lester

Birds Do It Better

This year, my client again provides me with eight five-gallon plastic pots filled with rich, black soil and planted with sets of several varieties of tomato plants. I do my best to keep them watered and free of pests, mold, and other diseases, which have plagued these plants most years. I keep the pots separated from each other by several feet in the hope that one bad plant will not infect the others. I flick bugs off the leaves with my finger – not a mortal blow, more of a springboard to a better life. I pluck off the yellowing and moldy leaves and the rogue weeds, as soon as I see them.

a bumblebee
circles the hydrangea –
storm clouds

On a whim, I plant grapefruit seeds in a couple of the pots. After a few weeks, they sprout! I look at it as a kind of backup plan in case the tomato plants disappoint again this year.

a sparrow
leaves a few droppings –
dandelion sprouts