The community garden grew outward each month, the raised beds filling one ring at a time from the original plot in the center. By harvest the entire quadrat was green. Then the first hard freeze caught them by surprise — a single night below zero that killed everything on the exposed perimeter. The outermost ring of beds, the ones with no neighboring plants to trap warmth, frosted over completely. The interior beds, sheltered on all sides, survived the night. By the next season the perimeter was replanted.