When I'm in our garden during this time of year, a part of my family's grace before meals prayers often comes to mind. The part of the prayer I think about goes like this: "... for these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty..."
The garden truly does produce a bounty of gifts for us in the form of delicious fruits and vegetables. Though I've been gardening since I was a small child, I never fail to be amazed at how many meals one small packet of seeds can provide.
Even when it seems like there was poor germination and only part of a row grows, we still are overdone with garden goodies. Take this year's lettuce crop, for example. Heavy rains and cool temperatures hit just after planting, and resulted in just a few plants scattered here and there in the row. My husband, Brian, was considering buying another package of lettuce seeds so he could plant another row, but I suggested that he wait a couple of weeks.
I figured if he waited, the second crop would be a little later than whatever we were able to glean from the first. Good thing Brian agreed to my plan because the 15 or so lettuce plants that remained from the first planting gave us enough lettuce for our family, some of our extended family and my co-workers.
Bounty
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When it comes to lettuce, a little goes a long way both in terms of how many plants are needed to produce the crop and how much one can eat. I love salads, but I would have had to eat them morning noon and night to consume what the row would have yielded if all of the seeds had germinated.
Another crop that I've become wiser about over the years are the green beans. Beans are survivors and no matter the weather and in spite of the rabbits that like to munch on tender, young plants, they are prolific producers. My mom often tells the story about the year that the rabbits ate all of the leaves off of the beans, and all that were left were bare, little stems, and they still produced a crop.
When I moved away from home and started gardening on my own, I forgot my mom's story and planted two rows of beans "just in case" we had a bad year. Brian and I ended up with enough beans to feed the county. We ate buttered beans, pickled beans and creamed beans for dinner many nights and took grocery bags of beans to work, gave them to our families, and we still had beans left over.
The short row of beans I planted this year is just the right size, producing plenty for our family of five and still providing us with some to give away to family and friends.
Besides being conservative with our bean planting, we also play it safe with zucchini, only putting in a couple of plants. As all gardeners know, zucchini grows fast and furious.
In the blink of an eye, you can end up with zucchini "clubs," which are popular for use as weapons by 13- and 10-year-old boys, but when it comes to human consumption are good for very little. I know you can make zucchini bread, but I'm more fond of banana and almond poppy seed bread, and if I'm going to take the time to bake, I would rather make one of those.
More garden goodness
Another thing my gardening experience has taught me is that I have to overcompensate when it comes to pea planting. Though a row of peas make look like it will produce a big crop and a full grocery bag of the vegetables may seem like a lot, after they're shelled it's a pretty paltry amount.
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This year, I planted twice the amount of peas as I normally do and that turned out just right. Our family has enjoyed the melt-in-your mouth sweetness of the fresh peas and we've also had extra to give away.
We've also picked buckets and buckets-full of raspberries, which I've shared with family and co-workers both fresh off of the bush and in berry cream muffins.
Barring hail or some other natural disaster, still to come will be tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, eggplant, peppers, squash and pumpkins.
When my family and I sit down to eat supper together, besides being thankful for each other, we are grateful for the gifts that the garden provides us in the form of fresh food "from thy bounty."
