Pull Up a Chair and Enjoy the Garden

Well, it has begun: the mysterious appearance of vegetables (poof!) on your back steps, on the picnic table, or even on your desk at work. The most prolific magic garden products seem to be cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash and onions. The most generous gifts, in my opinion, are home-grown tomatoes, and I’ve had a few of those along with some string beans. Most appreciated.

What makes these gifts so very special is simply the freshness; you just can’t buy that kind of flavor in the grocery store. Potatoes or turnips or cabbage and such still taste all right a month after harvest. But salad crops such as leaf lettuce, mustard and turnip greens are at their peak when prepared and consumed almost immediately. Garden peas fresh from the vines and cooked rapidly in an open kettle are a different vegetable from any that can be bought. And, of course, you know what happens to sweet corn when it sits out in the heat at the farmer’s market all day. Anyway, enjoy the little gifts you find on the back porch. It just doesn’t get any better.

If you raise your own garden, now is the time to begin the big harvest. Squash, beans, tomatoes, peppers, sweet corn and pole beans begin to show up on your table. Canning and freezing can’t be far behind. It just says summer. Be sure to harvest at the right times, though. Pull up the onions and shallots when the tops turn yellow and fall over. Please, please get those squash, cucumbers and zucchini when they’re small and tender. When cantaloupes pull free easily from the vine, they’re ready. Pick your pole beans and string beans before you see the beans start to bulge. Tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are pretty obvious about when to pick; just be sure to dispose of unsuitable fruit. Pick sweet corn when the silks turn brown.

Even with all this activity, slow down for a few minutes every day and examine the flowers on the squash, investigate the garden for bugs, enjoy the twirling vines of the climbing beans. It doesn’t have to be work, work, work all the time! The garden is a thing of growing beauty. Appreciate it while you can.