Long Days, Full Hands
Tomatoes in our new garden, July 2025. photo by Jack Hartt
In July, the garden doesn’t ask if we’re ready. It simply ripens.
The quiet growth of spring has given way to a season that is full-bodied, unapologetically alive. Green beans reach for the sky, zucchini hide in plain sight until they suddenly become enormous, and the first blueberries offer their sweetness with a soft bloom of dusk-colored dust. Everything is in motion now—fruit swelling, stems thickening, pollinators weaving their tireless threads from flower to flower.
This is abundance. But not the kind that floats in lightly. July’s abundance is weighty and it asks something of us. We feel it in our hands, in our calendars, in the steady hum of responsibilities that accompany each harvest basket. It’s beautiful, yes. But it’s also work. What we planted in spring now asks for our full participation. There’s no turning back—only tending what’s begun.
And still, if we’re quiet enough, we might notice the subtlest of shifts. The sun, though still high and strong, is already turning. The days, just barely, begin to shorten. The light changes—softer at the edges, warmer in tone. Even in summer’s crescendo, the first notes of its descent begin to play.
It’s a bittersweet awareness—that this moment of ripeness won’t last forever. But perhaps that’s what makes it so meaningful. We are deep in the season now, and the garden is no longer a promise. It is presence.
This is the time for discernment—for knowing what to water and what to let go, what needs staking and what can sprawl, what is enough and what is too much. July teaches us to keep showing up—not just to sow, but to support. It’s not always glamorous. Sometimes it looks like retying the same tomato twine, again. Sometimes it feels like weariness, not wonder. And that’s okay.
If you’re feeling stretched, you’re not alone. Garden fatigue is real. Nature never demands perfection—only that we return. That we pay attention. That we take the next small step. If you need a hand in choosing which one that is, Eco-Restore is here to help—whether it’s prioritizing your to-do list, helping your soil breathe again, or just walking the land beside you.
And still, despite the long days and long lists, we are sustained. By the taste of sun-warmed berries. By a patch of shade that wasn’t there a few weeks ago. By a hummingbird’s zip past your ear, the slow unfolding of a sunflower, the spiderweb glistening on the gate.
Because in July, the garden hums not just with bees, but with relationships. Roots hold soil. Vines climb toward whatever they can trust. Trees shelter what they cannot see. We are part of this great, interwoven song.
So let us pause, even in the middle of all the doing, to give thanks—for the food, for the life, for the living web that holds us.
