Of course, I should have.

Overnight, everything died. It was two weeks later that my neighbor told me the actual low of that night was 23 degrees, far below the 41 the internet had promised. I wasn’t expecting frost, though of course I knew it was a possibility, our first frost date of September 9th long past. Still, it was bizarrely sunny and glorious days we were experiencing — a true fall, said everyone in town. We enjoyed it, and I didn’t cover my plants.

Of course, I should have. I knew this underneath a pile of thoughts, I knew in my spine — I was neglecting a task. But I was reveling in the harvest. It was my first successful year growing vegetables after five failed seasons. In Colorado, the elk, the deer, the voles got to my plants. In Colorado, I didn’t make enough effort, I didn’t work to learn. In Montana, we moved too late in the season to start seeds. I spent more time building the boxes, the fence, the plans, the vision than actually caring for the what I had planted. There were a few baby squash, a few tomatoes, and a lot of half-hearted stragglers. “Honestly, it was unimpressive,” when my sister-in-law recalls what met her eyes.

This year was different. I want to grow vegetables, goddamn it. I want to feed my family, I want to feed my town. I want to eat and nourish and live differently. We bought lights and a poorly made mini indoor greenhouse. I started hundreds of seeds throughout February and March. I watched them every day, I spritzed them with water, I adjusted the lights. I found an old woman in Billings who had been running a farm for 30 years, I worked with her. I sweated in blistering heat waves digging hole after hole in which to install her 300 tomato plants. I stole some of her seeds, I stole some of her knowledge.

Back home, I watered everyday. I talked to the soil in which I had placed my seeds, my starts. I couldn’t see anything, but I knew something was happening. I waited, much longer than I wanted to. I saw photos from friends and other gardeners on social media — ones living in climates and locales much better suited to grow. I envied their harvests in June, July.

But August and September hit and so did the fruit of my labor. Suddenly, there was an abundance of squash, an abundance of tomatoes, of peppers, of eggplant, of kale leaves bigger than my face. It was enough to cover the failures, the mistakes, the things I could have done better. It was enough for the town to talk.

I don’t try at things very hard. I’m not a perfectionist. Perhaps I was content with my level of success for the season. Perhaps I wanted to see what would happen. Perhaps I was taunting the cosmos.

Overnight, everything died. What was hours before vibrant and lush was now black and shriveled. The vegetables sat suspended in a moment in time, a moment of no return. The tomatoes would no longer color, the squash would grow no larger. The vines’ curious wander outside of the box and across the earthen floor came to an abrupt end.