Tomato, Potato, Zucchini, Oh My! (what the heck do I do with it all!)

Bounty from one day last summer.

We've pretty much established that this Summer, my garden took a back seat to other kinds of growing (and hopefully harvesting).  It took a back seat to fitting in a yoga class or a long walk.  Sometimes it took a back seat to a bit of a longer sleep in the morning when my adrenals were kicking my butt.  It took a back seat to work, mostly.  All sowing was done there this year.  It had to.  And, of course, this past Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer I've had a strange and conflicted relationship to my 5 x 12 plot because of all that it meant for me before The Squeeze left me.  But, slowly, I'm getting back in the swing of things.... I have high hopes for the Fall plantings.

But, in the meantime, I'm a failed gardener this summer.  Oh sure, I've harvested one bowl worth of tomatoes and some herbs.  I picked one japanese eggplant and two cucumbers with a scattering of carrots.  And there were the two cabbages that grew ever so slowly over the Fall and Winter and finally were harvested a few weeks ago.   And, I picked... um, oh yeah.  Nada.  I mean I probably have broken some kind of gardening record.  A zucchini plant that grew NO zucchini.  Stop the presses!

But, if you happen to have had a much better growing season and find yourself sneaking around in the middle of the night dropping produce off on your neighbor's front porch.  Here's an idea:  Give it to the hungry.  I follow a lovely blog called GREEN FRIEDA.  And Audrey has posted HERE about a wonderful organization called Ample Harvest   So, if you find yourself with an embarrassment of riches in the form of garden produce, maybe this is the solution! 

Sometimes a Garden is Just a Garden

Last year's cucumbers.... sigh. 

Sometimes it's just about actually gardening:

- picked a dozen or so San Marzano tomatoes
- lamented over the second plant that seems to have fruit that is rotting from the bottom **
- picked two dozen or so yellow tear drop tomatoes
- planted lettuce seedlings in the plot under the peach tree (thank Leigh for leaving extras)
- planted snap pea seedlings (why not try for the third time this year!) Planted them closer together than last batch.  Maybe it will help.  ***
 
** Note to self.  Google this and figure out what you've done wrong.
*** Doubtful!  Mostly just get to the garden more to water, damn it!

Meditation...

I'm behind schedule today.  As usual.  I can't ever seem to find enough time to work, exercise, play, explore my photography, sleep, rest, organize, clean, and connect with friends and loved ones.

My garden keeps coming last these days, so true to my post yesterday I chose to spend the time I needed there this morning.  Bright and early at 8am I did the following:

****  Cut down most of my basil which I was finding too bitter to make pesto out of and "green manured" it to break down for a few months in my lettuce bed.
****  Green manured my japanese eggplant that just wasn't producing and truthfully looked like an abuse case.  Someone should call to report me to the plant equivalent of Child Services.
****  Replanted my cilantro to a shadier spot after googling that it can't be in soil that heats up to 75 Degrees.  um yeah.  Given my watering schedule the past few months it's like its been growing in the Sahara. All bolt, no leaves.  I have very little hope for its survival, but have learned for the next round.
****  Moved my zucchini plant to try to give it space and hopefully grow.  So far this summer there have been few flowers and absolutely no fruit.  How neglectful of a gardener must you be in order to not have zucchini grow.  Barbara Kingsolver talks in her book ANIMAL, MINERAL, MIRACLE about making sure in the summer that your house and car doors are locked so as to not find yourself with your neighbor's excess zucchini (usually while you are out trying to unload yours!)  That's how neglectful!
****  Pulled up runners for my Chinese Lantern.
****  Harvested:  tomatoes: san marzano and yellow teardrop, basil, rosemary, parsley, a leaf or two of non-bolted cilantro, thyme.  So, basically nothing is growing in my garden this year!
****  Pulled dead leaves off of the teardrop tomato plant.
****  Moved a pepper plant to a sunnier space.
****  Tied up tomato plants.
****  Picked off bolting bits from the one basil plant I left standing as a companion plant for the tomato plants.  I used the massive amounts of those flowering bolted bits as more green manure.
****  Mulched with the new straw that the garden manager brought in.
****  Weeded nut grass.
****  Composted one sage plant and prayed for the health of the other.
****  And watered.  Long slow watering for the entire time I worked in the garden.  And still I know it wasn't enough to get down deep - my plants were so deprived....

And so at 11am, a full three hours - and according to my iphone app 823 calories later - I headed home;  late enough, dirty enough, and hungry enough that I could not make the "Introduction to Meditation" class I'd wanted to attend today.  "You failed at your list of things to do again," I thought.

But, then I realized that I'd spent three hours meditating.  No thoughts - good or bad - had entered my mind while snipping, digging, pruning, picking.  No fears.  No worries.  No lists of all that awaited me at home yet to do today.  No heartbreak.  Nothing.  Just silence.  Me and God in the garden with only empty mind space of meditative work in front of me.  And I know I still need to get to the class and learn to empty my mind and center my body and soul for when I'm not at the garden.  But, at least for today, I will check it off my 'to do' list:  Meditate: CHECK

And yes,  as predicted in yesterday's post, my manicure is ruined. 

My Grandmother's Hands...

This is not a picture of my grandmother's hands.  It is, in fact, a photo of my hand today taken with my iphone after a manicure because holding my "big girl" camera up with a heavy lens by just one hand seemed more challenging than I was up for today.

I work in a business where "coiffed" is a write off on your taxes. Yet, I've never managed to get the time (or inclination) to make weekly appointments at the nail salon.  I scramble before a big event, occasionally.  Or I go more often when I'm being urged by friends or therapists or loved ones to "take more time" for myself, wincing at the $12 bucks (yes, Vietnamese salon is the fanciest I enter!).  I think, "what a waste".  I'll end up washing or cleaning or buttoning my jeans in an hour and the polish will be ruined.  I'll wash my hair once or twice (there is a lot of it) and the manicure will be a brief memory and I'll be back to hiding my hands under the table at meetings. 

But, really, as I sit there being pampered I think:  here's what has to happen in the garden tomorrow:

- the coriander needs to be moved to a shadier spot because it's bolting
- the japanese eggplant needs to just be turned over - it ain't happening this summer
- the zucchini needs to have the leaves cut back
- the tomatoes need to be tied
- the nutgrass needs to be weeded
- the blue stone pavers need to be lifted up and the ground graded....

You get the picture.  I berate myself for not planning the manicure better.  But, honestly, there is never a good time when you are a gardener.  Maybe if you just grow roses.  I don't know.  Inform me, Dear Readers.  But, when you are generally just eager to get your hands in the dirt, a manicure is not long for the world.  

I'm generally of the mind that my hands, by today's beauty standards, leave much to be desired.  They aren't elegant or feminine.  I struggle to keep long nails.  And they certainly don't have the appearance as to be some extension of a beautiful sculpture made flesh.  In fact, I doubt any artist in his right mind would ever WANT to sculpt them or paint them or, truthfully, photograph them (see Exhibit A above).  They are for a lack of a more poetic description:  chubby, short, sausage fingered hands.  They are "peasant" hands.  The are gardener's hands.

And, as I have begun to recognize as I'm aging, they are also my grandmother's hands.  They are the hands of my Italian grandmother:  Mary.  Maria.  Nana.  She was worker that one.  Worked from the time she was 16 until the day she died.  She cleaned, cooked, raised children, cut wood, and buffed that kitchen floor every night of her adult life and - while most of the gardening fell to her brother - yes, she gardened, too. 

So, there it is.  Love me.  Love my hands.  They are worker hands.  They are gardener's hands.  They are Mary's hands.