Abundance

This week I cleaned out the freezer and canning shelves. Oh, the excitement, I know! Last summer and fall I completely packed these spaces as full as they could get-- forty quarts of apple sauce, forty pounds of beans tucked into jars, twenty five pounds of cucumbers into pickles, over sixty pounds of berries, several dozen jars of jam, stacks of pumpkins, pre-cooked beans, and something like ten stock-pots full of tomatoes. There is not much left, now, which is how it should be.

We went strawberry picking. It was awful. The fields were picked over and full of weeds. I barely got enough for six pints of jam. But I did have good helpers.

Tomorrow we will try raspberry picking. But here is what I am learning: this food production thing, it really fluctuates. There are "good" and "bad" years for certain foods. Living out of grocery stores, we are very insulated from this fact, but the berry fields and the back garden do not lie.

So. Right now we are celebrating certain things in abundance just on our doorstep: the summer squashes and cucumbers who hardly put in an appearance last year are thriving.

The beans are bursting into flower and the sunflowers are edging ever upward.

Letttuces, peas, radishes, beets are all doing well. Our artichokes went absolutely mad this year and gave us over thirty from two wee plants.

But mixed in with all the success, there is tragedy too. The tomato seedlings I brought home were all infected with a bacteria. Yesterday I spent all afternoon pulling up over a dozen well-established but now fruitless plants. I scrubbed their stakes and the clippers with antibacterial soap so I could at least re-use them. I heaped the dead vines into the yard waste bin (I can't even compost them). And with a deep sense of frustration, tried to figure out how to make the best of a very bad situation. I won't be able to plant tomatoes in my two largest beds for the next two years. Three summers of restoring and building soil all gone. And we really rely on those tomatoes all year. We ate last year's last jar last night. 

This is how it goes. Learn a bit more each season. Try something new. Never buy from that store again. Rotate your plants every year. Mulch with straw if it is rainy.

And most of all, focus on on what we do have, and enjoy it fully. I am beginning to appreciate this as a process, and there is a certain grace in an attitude of learning and gratitude for the small successes we do manage. Gardening, I find, works on so very many metaphorical levels. It is good for me, both spiritually and physically. Even when I fail.

 

Comments

[rebecca]

bummer about the tomatoes. we do have such high hopes when putting in a garden. that's what it's all about for me at that stage of the process. i've mostly given all the veggie growing over to our super-local farmers. it's a joy to wander down to the farmstand every tuesday evening, chat with neighbors, and fill the bike basket with leafy greens. i just can't get much to grow in our yard with the deer always traipsing through! but our raspberries are awesome again this year! yours?

[Ramona]

oh. the tomato tragedy.
I feel your pain.
last year my garden was dismal failure on all fronts. this year we are faring much better.

[Molly]

oh, hello, old friend. i swing by often, am awful about dropping a note, so here, all in one go:
1. pity the poor tomatoes! and the years ahead, such a shame. but yes, the process, the distance, the learning. humbling, all of it. and humbling is always good. (also, farmer's markets, that might make up for those lost toms)
2. i laughed when i saw, again, your summer wall, as we stole it lock, stock, and barrel, back in may. i remembered it, see, from last year, vividly, and thought it so brilliant, i tucked it away in my mind's eye. and brilliant it is, a steady go-to in our home. we create and use it a bit differently (no pictures, but love that; tack things up as we think of them; 3x5 cards, b/c i love them), but it has been wonderful. so thank you for that, a big thank you.
3. the cake. lucky day.
4. happy summer to you, katurah.
cheers,
molly