Harvest Law

“In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.”
William Blake

Vermillion leaves.
Pumpkins orange.
Brilliant yellows surround.
Verdant plants.
Azure skies.
Golden stalks rise from the ground.
Whitening frost.
Blackening nights.
Purple hues of morning draw
Silvery clouds.
Rich brown soil.
The colors of the harvest law.

Robyn J. Mock

“The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow.
Sow an act, and you reap a habit.
Sow a habit and you reap a character.
Sow a character and you reap a destiny.”
James Allen

Farmers and gardeners alike know the law of the harvest:
to bring in a greater abundance than what originally one sows.

Laws exist in every aspect of life.

People uphold and sustain established laws for freedoms and protection.
When individuals break any law, punitive consequences may follow to restore the order in the law-abiding system.

Nature thrives when its established laws prevail.
Any variation with water, fire, wind, and soil creates natural consequences for the world’s biomes.
Yet, miraculously, the earth seeks to repair itself and adapt to changes over and over again.

Despite it all, the earth finds a way to flourish.

Look at the potential packed into one viable seed.

Every seed can genetically produce a plant that will provide anywhere from one to an infinite amount of fruits or roots.
With some plants, the more one picks, the more they produce over the season.

Cut open a squash, a pumpkin, a tomato even.
Count the seeds.
Notice how a single seed in one of these fruits can provide hundreds of seeds with equally potential growth.

Harvest law at work.

Any seed needs the right location, the right conditions, and the right timing to generate a bounteous harvest.

Prepare the soil tilling replenishing nutrients to enrich any depleted soil compacted from unuse or previous growing season.

Think of the growing cycle.
For any plant to grow, you must till, fertilize, plant, weed, provide light, and water.
The correct climate and knowledge of the seasonal cycles aid in knowing how, what, and when to plant seeds, seedlings, or small plants.

In growing living things, timing, mixed with patience and care, provides the greatest outcome.

In growing living things, timing, mixed with patience and care, provides the greatest outcome.

A beautiful garden started but then neglected will follow natural consequences of low to zero production.
A garden started too late or too early may follow the same consequences.

Yet, those who plant and care with discipline and attentiveness,
barring natural occurrences like early frost,
may find increase and abundance flowing from their stalks, vines, and roots.

The bounteous harvest will come throughout the summer
and hopefully into the fall
when the vibrant, winter-hearty vegetables and fruits emerge.

“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting, and autumn a mosaic of them all.”
Stanley Horowitz

In the northern hemisphere,
September, October, and sometimes November
witness the most beautiful transformation of color
that our earth can paint across the landscape.

“Our deep respect for the land and its harvest is the legacy of generations of farmers
who put food on our tables, preserved our landscape,
and inspired us with a powerful work ethic.”
James H. Douglas, Jr.

At the autumn advent,
my farming sister and her husband gather in the wealth of pumpkins, squash, corn, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, apples, and more
where their trucks and trailers can hardly hold them.

She never lets the precious harvest waste on the ground or in the fields, if she can help it.
Their cellars burst with fullness.
Her canned goods fill her pantry shelves and testify of her labor to preserve the abundance.

…always she has more to spare,
generously giving without diminishing.

Harvest law.

In my own yard, we have witnessed the harvest brimming from our little garden boxes
and bringing us the wholeness that only the fruits and vegetables of the earth can yield.