If you began reading this column today due to the headline then it worked, but it was a trick. There was no Garden of Eden at Angelkeep over the past summer. At least not like the Biblical garden with a tree fruit of knowledge (misconstrued as an apple) and a serpent. Angelkeep did have human-planted apple trees, the fruits of which the deer love. Angelkeep had God-planted crabapple tree production, which make a tasty cobbler. Angelkeep had serpents, mostly garter and water snakes, who do not spend time luring womenfolk into sinful apple indulgences.
Angelkeep’s notable Garden of Ambiguity in the summer of 2022 now past, the summer, not the year . . . well, this uncertain garden appeared out of nowhere. At Angelkeep when such an event happens, it often received attribution as from “nature’s oddity,” or more frequently, “It’s a God thing.”
The vagueness question remained, would God host His garden in half a whiskey barrel?
In such a half-barrel conversion to a patio planter, the mysterious garden appeared. Angelkeep planned to fill this particular wooden patio planter with nine starts of deep purple petunias.
Gwen’s prior passion per purple petunia preceded this particular patio pot’s plentiful planting.
Purple petunias flourished until mid-summer with cascades of dark violet bloom spilling outside the whiskey barrel.
Then the miracle began.
Purple petunias began waxing away due to the new growth of unplanted varieties of flora. One of four new plants grew from the center of the whiskey barrel garden. It appeared from the start to be a sunflower. A volunteer sunflower of the oil sunflower variety would not be all that uncommon an Angelkeep summer event since chipmunks gather fallen oil sunflower seeds from the bird feeders only six feet away. They then carry them to one of many underground chipmunk pantries to store for winter food. The yellow bloom grew to be lovely. However the source came into question when its companion plants began outgrowing the short sunflower.
The three additional plants that intermingled roots with the sunflower eventually evolved into two pepper stalks and one tomato plant. This became the summer garden mystery that proved unsolvable even to the likes of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. How did two veggie varieties and one sunflower get planted in the same spot? To Angelkeep’s knowledge, chipmunks did not add more than sunflower seeds, acorns, and nuts to their burrow pantry.
Was this a new Garden of Eden planted by God as a renewed temptation toward humankind into biting into the fruit of the stalk? Would there be consequences for dining upon the God-planted peppers? The pepper variety could not easily be determined in its green form appearing like a bell pepper, but elongated, yet too short to be a banana pepper, and too large to call itself a mini-pepper used so abundantly in Angelkeep’s breakfast omelet stir-fry.
UFO.
Unidentified Flora Objects in an Angelkeep whiskey barrel half.
At the opposite end of the patio Angelkeep kept a raised set of patio pots filled with garden delights such as green and yellow wax beans, green onions, and basil. Additional whiskey barrels planted to the east of the Garden of Eden contained alternative types of flowers. They all flourished in a cacophony of color. All homegrown produce had been consumed without any Heavenly command to depart from Angelkeep’s gardens.
Angelkeep’s attempted heirloom tomato plantings located well east of the patio grew pathetically small. Deer munching three weeks of growth off the tops of the plants didn’t help. Angelkeep long ago gave up trying to grow bell and banana peppers when the cost of plants far exceeded the produce gained. The past summer’s whiskey barrel garden produced peppers prolifically proving positively that . . .
God is good, all the time.
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
