It’s a poor summer when even the summer squash doesn’t bear well. I don’t mind, since I don’t care much for any variety of squash, but Bruce isn’t pleased. Evidently that kind of vine isn’t liking the heat, I’ve heard several reports of poor yields, and one person who said his pumpkins wouldn’t grow. Our cucumbers were puny too, but otherwise we are eating mostly from the garden. As a rancher, I tend not to think I had a meal unless there was meat, but lately I can skip that and gorge on fresh produce.
There’s no point in a BLT, as far as I’m concerned, unless you have fresh picked tomatoes on it. We haven’t had tomatoes for breakfast but every other meal includes them, and will until frost, or the vines give up. The only problem is that we have kept up with them and not saved enough to make salsa.
Bruce needs to tend his beets—another vegetable I’ll leave to him, but the carrots are fine in the ground till it gets cold. We have had a better bean crop in the raised bed than we ever did otherwise, and the lettuce lasted till mid-July, as did asparagus, even with the heat. Stuffed peppers are a treat, and some years we haven’t had enough of a crop to indulge, but this year we eat them weekly.
Sweet corn isn’t planted here, but a cousin raises extra, so we ate our fill, and froze a lot for winter. The Colorado peaches from FFA will be the next project for the freezer, but so far, we are eating them fresh every meal. We didn’t raise melons, but can’t pass a street corner stand without loading up. We’re out of apple butter, so Bruce will soon call the orchard where we get those, to see how the crop survived this year.
I’ve been recalling how this season went in past years. When I was a child and young adult, there were always fruit trucks at the auction barn on sale day. Dad would come home with bushels of peaches, pears, apples and plums, and Mom would sigh wearily at the prospect of all the canning that lay ahead. But it all tasted pretty fine on a snowy winter day. We gardened too, and I suppose one reason I don’t care for beets is all the hot days of helping Mom pickle them. Not much was wasted, including watermelon rind, which also went into a pickle jar.
When I was raising my family, my husband plowed up a piece of corral that wasn’t used until fall, and planted watermelon, cantaloupe, and potatoes there. Somehow it seemed that everyone was busy in the hayfield when it needed hoeing, and I was too, but the chore fell to me, along with the milking. By that time, we had a freezer so I never did any canning, but I appreciate it when anyone gives us a jar of something home canned, and when the canner comes out around here, Bruce is in charge.
I hope you all had a garden, or know someone who likes to share. There’s nothing better than fresh fruits and vegetables, and it takes up a lot of slack in the grocery bill too.