Like a benevolent Garden Goddess, I find myself bestowing—OK, forcing a blessing of fruit or vegetables upon all who visit my home.
It actually started early in July. Rejoicing over the first of the harvest, I was eager to share my abundance. “Here, please take a container of raspberries home with you,” I would say as I magnanimously held out an offering to my visitors.
Then the plums started dropping in generous quantities from the tree. Ripe and ready to eat or preserve, they would not wait. I made plum sauce, plum muffins, plum bread, plum turnovers, and we had fresh plums for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. “Just a minute”, I would call to my unsuspecting visitors as they were leaving, “You will want to take some of these plums home with you.” Undoubtedly touched by my generosity, they would happily leave my door, clutching their sacks of plums.
Then it was the apples. I baked apple muffins, applesauce bread, apple turnovers, apple pie, and we had apples for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. “Don’t forget your apples,” I would say, smiling sweetly as I handed each friend a parting gift of a sack or shoe box full of apples.
For the past couple of weeks, the abundant harvest has been tomatoes. Quarts of spaghetti sauce have joined the other fruits of my harvest in the freezer and I have dried several cookie sheets of tomatoes to pack in olive oil for use throughout the winter. I baked six loaves of tomato bread and have been eating fresh tomatoes with brunch, lunch, and dinner. By now, my visitors know the routine and simply hold out their hand whether they want my garden gifts or not.
Most recently, several friends have begun to bring offerings from their own bounty, notably zucchini and cucumbers. And, it may surprise you to know that I am delighted to get them. Why? Easy! I am one of the few gardeners in the valley that did not plant these prolific vegetables this year. So, thanks to my generous friends, I have “done up” some “bread and butter” pickles, have enjoyed my favorite zucchini casserole, and have a couple of loaves of zucchini bread cooling on the racks in the kitchen. I plan to bake the yellow crookneck squash tonight for supper. This morning I had a bowl of fresh peaches topped with sugar and cream, and there are still enough peaches to bake a pie later.
I love it all. Harvest time is my favorite time of the year. We reap what we have sown, a bounty often beyond our expectations. The hunter-gatherer is close to the surface in those of us who are die-hard gardeners, especially this time of year.
Sure, it would be easier, and probably cheaper, to buy cans of tomatoes, plums, and pickles at the grocery store. So, why do so many of us continue to garden and gather long after our families are grown and gone? Well, for one thing, vine- and tree-ripened fruit and vegetables always taste better. But that is only part of it. I think that it is the miracle of it all. It is God’s abundant blessings of more than we can possibly use ourselves, a wealth of delicious and nourishing gifts that must be shared. I can almost sense Saint Isidore and his wife, Maria, the patron saints of farmers, smiling approvingly as I stand by my door and ask my parting guests, “Would you like to take home some carrots and beets?”
