The entire gardening venture is satisfying and fun for the most part. Yes, there are disappointments and frustrations such as critters that munch plants. I believe I shared a half dozen ears of corn over the last couple of weeks with a creature able to peel the husk back. I’m thinking raccoon. Here’s what Robert Burns said to a mouse about sharing some of his corn with it:
I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun* live! (must)
A daimen icker* in a thrave* (one ear out of a large bunch)
‘S a sma’* request; (small)
I’ll get a blessin wi’* the lave*, (with what’s left over)
An’ never miss’t!
(from the poem “To a Mouse” by Robert Burns)
Then you’ve got unpredictable weather, summer drought and over-wet spring, also a bother. Add to that my foolish anxiety waiting for seeds to push through the soil, then the ridiculous worry, wondering if the plants will bear fruit. These I bring on myself and almost always the seeds and plants prove me wrong by sprouting and bearing. Gardening includes a lot of back-breaking work: turning over soil, lugging wheelbarrows full of manure or mulch or compost to the garden, watering. There’s the tedium of planting tiny seeds one at a time in their own little cells. And don’t get me started with weeding. But these are why I like tending a garden, and part of what makes the July through September payoff so satisfying.
Upon returning from our vacation we took a bucket to Smith so we’d have something to hold whatever produce might be ready. I had no idea we’d go home with it brimful of garden goodies. Part of the fun is being amazed that anything I planted actually produced fruit. Yes, it’s really possible for guys like me who enjoy poking around a bit in the soil to grow something.
The bucket was half full of the tomatoes.
Picking tomatoes and cucumbers (the latter not pictured because they’re growing in the Lorelei and arrive like manna for the children of Israel in the wilderness: one or two every few days, just enough for our daily needs) and especially beans, but really any ripe crop in the garden is like Christmas and Easter. You have presents all over the place, but you’ve got to go find them. The search is an adventure, the discovery, a delight. I tend to be (o.k., I am) hasty with so many things, un-careful when I should be attentive. I can be that way picking garden produce. I think I’ve gotten them all, then I lean over or get on my hands and knees for a new view and voila, another tomato. Cucumbers pose the greatest challenge. I remember once last year, days went by and I’d pick a cuke or two, then one day I went out and, SHAZAAM, there was a huge, grossly overripe one, wallowing in the soil like some fat ole sow mocking me for not finding it sooner. They blend almost perfectly with cucumber leaves and vines.
I’m looking forward to the day I gather the two dozen or more butternut squash in Smith, even now ripening all over the place. It will be an Easter egg hunt extraordinaire!
I’m going to temper the joy of bounty by briefly mentioning the dark side of a successful garden: dealing with loads of fresh fruit and vegetables. For the most part this year, I’ve only picked enough at any one time, had enough ripe, that we could easily and gradually use. With all these tomatoes and peppers now we need to preserve them somehow. We can’t eat them all at once. I’ll write more about this later but for now, I’ll mention that my wife turned the four pounds of Roma tomatoes from the picture, above, into a delicious sauce with garlic, peppers, oregano also from my garden. Only the onion in it wasn’t.
Cooking down the sauce
We pickled the peppers we picked, a couple of pints, not a peck. If my garden were larger, we’d be pickling dozens of pints at once and would need to process them in a water bath. Our pickles we just stick in the fridge to sit for a month or so before we dig in.
If you visit us these weeks, I’ll let you play Christmas and Easter in the garden, too.
*Should I alleviate a little of the alliteration?
