DailySusan Humor Blog

THE GARDEN PLOT

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
-- Galatians 6:9

Farmer Ernie and I are almost done with our harvest. The fruits of our labors are spread out among friends and neighbors far and wide. This summer, we made a garden out of what used to be a weedy, dusty paddock behind our barn. It has been a joy.

Farmer Ernie is my brother-in-law, Ernie Hanus. Born a farm boy, he’s ‘’gone condo’’ with grown children, but wanted to go back to his roots -- literally. So he provided the muscle and the knowhow, and I provided the comic relief. All summer, he paid regular visits to what we called ‘’The North One-Fortieth,’’ and we had ourselves a time.

We had the thrill of victory:

-- So many zucchini to cook and eat, my sister and I thought we were sprouting green freckles. One was so large, we said, “Get a saddle.” A friend promised to send a menu for “The Last Zucchini Dinner Party” using every imaginable dish made from you-know-what.

-- Perfectly-shaped, rich-tasting tomatoes to eat sliced, in salads, in salsa, in tomato pie, and chopped up into freezer bags for a blast of flavor in wintry dishes.

-- Delicate lettuce that melted in your mouth.

-- Green beans with satisfying snap and flawless texture.

-- Enough cucumbers to provide my friend pert, pretty Penny plenty of produce for her perky peppered pickle relish.

-- Squash and ornamental gourds so healthy that vines have burst out of the paddock, are climbing up the pine trees, and ringing the neighbors’ doorbells.

We also had the agony of defeat:

-- The Great Flood: I forgot to turn off the sprinkler once. Forty-eight hours and one real rainstorm later, we had drowned roots, mushy potatoes and the untimely deaths of our cherry tomato crop. Ernie wasn’t mad, but bet he wished he’d planted UMBRELLA PLANTS out there.

-- The Freak Hurricane: the same day Hurricane Charley was pounding Florida, winds here took out 50 percent of our sunflower crop -- one eight-footer -- and also gave us a whole row of left-leaning corn, which was highly disturbing to us Republicans.

-- Pestilence: one evening, we saw hundreds of squash bugs massing all over the ends of our Big Max pumpkins. So we had the Squash Bug Holocaust -- a totalitarian wipeout of mostly (sniff) young nymphs. How? How else? We squashed ‘em! Hope People for the Ethical Treatment of Squash Bugs don’t find out.

-- Wild Beasts: we are literally racing the coons for the last of the corn. They take an ear; we take an ear. I’m sure we all go home and complain about those OTHER guys ripping off OUR corn.

Overall, though, it’s been great. We mailed tomatoes to New York for BLT’s for the city slickers, and pickled beets to a beloved cousin recovering from a triple bypass.

Maddy got a new doll -- a gourd she dressed in pink jammies. Great future blackmail material there.

Ernie’s sister, a wonderful nun, will receive armfuls of gourds as autumnal table decorations in the nuns’ retirement home.

Our neighbors will smile this fall driving by the unique pumpkin snowman we’re going to make.

I adopted a G-rated swear word: ‘’bok choy.’’

My party conversation now consists of lectures on topics like overplanting hairy vetch -- ‘’the Mercedes of cover crops’’ -- for nitrogen boost and great tomato production.

I’ve enjoyed cooking unusual new dishes like butternut squash soup. Did you know one mustn’t merely bake or roast a butternut squash? That ruins the color and texture. Instead, one places the pieces lovingly in a pot with some broth, turning the heat on oh! so gently, and one SWEATS it. That way, it keeps its rich orange color and indeed, positively glows.

This summer’s garden has taught me so much, I swear it was Someone’s plot -- a garden plot -- to remind me to have fun, work hard, and don’t sweat the small stuff.

But do sweat the squash. It’s just better that way.

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Prayer request: Lord, bless the wedding today of our beautiful neighbor Raquel and her sweetheart, Frank. Grant them grace to deal with a rainy day, if that’s the way it goes, and a chance to cherish the warm wishes of their friends and family. Jesus, unite them forever, as we are united with You. (Ephesians 5:31)