My Garden Is Overflowing

Yesterday, I turned 22 cucumbers and 43 tomatoes into pickles and tomato sauce, respectively.

Every one was grown in my garden and picked within the last few days. We had reached a point at which the entire kitchen counter was covered with bowls and baskets of veggies and something HAD to be done with them all right that minute.

As a child, I hated working in the yard. We lived in the tropics, where everything grew a good foot or so a week, or so it seemed to me. My beloved mother dragged me kicking and screaming out back every weekend to help tame the jungle: the bougainvillea in particular was a flaming menace of blood-sucking thorns and my sworn enemy. (At that stage of the game, I did not appreciate its flowers in the least.) For years, I vowed that when I had a home of my own, the yard would be either green-painted concrete or AstroTurf if I had any say in the matter.

Then we bought this house, and it came with a fenced garden plot. (The reason for the fence became clear immediately...we were and are overrun with marauding deer who eat everything in sight.) In a sudden fit of domesticity, I decided to try growing tomatoes and herbs. Much to the amusement of everyone who had previously been subjected to my thoughts on gardening, I might add. Over the years, the garden haul has grown to include pumpkins, squash, beans, peas, strawberries, eggplant, hot and sweet peppers, tomatillos, and probably other things as well that aren't coming immediately to mind. I've gone so far as to teach myself to can what I grow, as well.

I still don't care much about growing flowers...that hasn't changed. I plant some every year for decoration, but my heart is not in the flowerbeds and hanging baskets.

The real satisfaction comes from feeding my family fruits and vegetables that I have nurtured myself with my own two hands in our own soil. My children pick for themselves and eat while they are playing: berries, cherry tomatoes, peas straight from the pod. Tiny sweet pineapple tomatillos right out of their husks.

This time of year, the bounty is at its peak. I am reminded of my blessings every time the garden catches my eye from the kitchen window.

And not one of the plants in it has thorns. ;)