Garden of earthly delights

August 10, 2014

Moonlighting. A blog by Judy Cools.

Ahhh…. the garden! What a deep well of reward from so little effort! The bright flowers reward us constantly from stairs, decks, and patio tables. They are happy, they are cheerful. So bright against the dark green woods, they are well worth the one afternoon of planting, for a whole season of smiles.

Vegetables are another delight. This year we tore out some bushes to claim our small space of sunny ground for the vegetable garden. We’re somehow about two weeks behind our friends who live a mile south – probably due to the darkness of the woods. In any case, we’re hoping to get to harvest before we get to winter. We have about a dozen stalks of corn just starting to tassle. Two bean plants; I planted eight, but evidently the wildlife eats the beans in seed form. We have five pea plants (planted eight of those, too).

The cucumbers disappeared altogether and had to be replanted, so those are behind, too. We have five different varieties of tomatoes, most of them nearly shoulder high and quite enthusiastic. While my mom is already inundated with too many ripe tomatoes from the same crop of starter plants we shared, our plants have just gotten flowers this week. I suppose you could look at that and say that we’ll share out harvests and keep each other in fresh tomatoes for months. That isn’t all bad.

We’re still waiting for flowers on the melons, and I doubt those will be ripe before it frosts. Shallots and three varieties of onions are lurking underground and sending up delicious onion scapes for garnishing our dinners in the meantime. A few peppers have happy homes in large pots on the deck, and lacey carrot tops are poking up from among most of my flowers.

We have enjoyed going out to grab a quick treat from the herb garden, or one of the red onions for color in a salad, even though a real harvest time is a long way off. I harvested three whole snow peas already and we have dozens of green beans ripening on the bush. Such a wonderful feeling to have a handy source of such good foods.

The black raspberries have been going crazy this year, and we can hardly eat them fast enough. If they froze better, that would address part of the situation, but they are so good fresh and right off the bush that’s how we like them best. Even so, there may be a few jars of black raspberry jam in our future.

In a busy life and all the busy days, our garden is a source of renewal and comfort. I’m sure I’ll be out there covering plants with sheets to protect them from the frost, come fall, and we’ll enjoy our little garden just as long as we can.

Kudos, complaints, or conversation? Moonlighting19@yahoo.com