How many of you have enjoyed a sliced red ripe tomato with your vegetable meals this summer? Or better yet, a large slice of tomato between two slices of bread slathered with mayonnaise?
These have been some rare treats for us this summer. They have been treasured more this summer because they have been special gifts from some successful gardeners who shared generously with us.
We grew up in farming families who always grew an abundance of vegetables. So we always had an ample supply of any type of vegetable we desired. We ate them fresh and we canned or froze them for use throughout the year.
When we were raising our family, we had a vegetable garden every year. One of my favorite veggies was one of the hardest things to harvest, but was well worth it. Butter beans. But we had a variety much like our parents used to grow. We began with squash, cucumbers, turnip greens, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, purple hull peas, butter beans (speckled and white ones) cantaloupes and water melons. I’m sure there were others that I have omitted, but it was a full garden. It was a lot of hard work but as my Mama would say, “It will be good this winter.”
As we aged, we had to give up our gardening, litle by little until it finally became a thing of the past.
This year we have been blessed by our younger family members who took up the gardening skills. Our daughter and son in law have excelled with their garden and have also added fruit trees, blueberries, blackberries and have even tried a hand a raising sugar cane. With all of this produce available, she has been busy canning and freezing all manner of foods. It reminds me of my Mama who stayed in the kitchen preserving all the goodies we raised because, “It will be good this winter.”
They have been generous to share beginning with the squash which came in first. The most recent was beautiful ripe tomatoes. I have had vegetable soup and tomato sandwiches, along with sliced tomatoes with our meals.
One of my nephews also inherited the gardening gene. Yesterday he left a message that said, “I left you some things on your front porch.”
Not only did he leave a lot of ripe tomatoes, but also a dozen lovely brown yard eggs.
Even though we can no longer provide our own treasures of farm life , we are blessed by those who can.
I hope you are enjoying the fruits of a good garden, if not your own then from a good neighbor.
So let me ask you. “How does your garden grow?”
Fannie Moore lives in Shongaloo.