Susan and friends bringing in the crops.

By Susan Shanklin

The edges of the trees are being kissed with orange, yellow, and red hues. The lettuce has bolted and flowered in the garden. Cabbages are soooooo swollen with life they are begging to be picked and the apples are hanging low with sweetness. Curly kale is too happy in this cool weather and just keeps going and going. “Stop,” I want to say! “Enough already!”

Rinnnnnnnnnnnnng goes the phone. “Hi Susan. I picked some winter pears for you. Are you interested in them?”

My eyes roll back in my head and I salivate with the remembrance of sweet, oh so sweet, pear sauce on bitter crisp winter mornings. I do not hesitate and the word “yes” escapes my lips before I can remember the rosy cheeked apples smiling at me from afar.

Oh dear, what is one to do? Well, pick more pears when you go to retrieve the already bagged pears!!!!!!!

So, harvest is not only here, but there too. Harvest can be anywhere.

I have learned that producing the harvest is great, but it must be preserved, too.

Gardening is great! Visions of soft soil, wiggly worms, and a bountiful harvest. Seed packets bumpy with seeds, with short and to the point directions. Plant and you shall receive.

What isn’t on the planting directions is “Beware of torrents of rain and the Minnesota state bird—’the mosquito.’ Beware of weed seeds galore, too cool days and nights. Beware of soggy soil turning to cracked-and-puzzle-looking soil or adorable barn cats digging up the seed just planted to deposit their past transactions.”

Seed packets don’t explain what to do when one vegetable competes with the another saying, “Pick me. Pick me now.” Everything has such an urgent cry.

But if one is sensitive to timing and the condition of the fruit, you’ll know. You’ll know all things.

So in the time of harvest, instead of taking hoes or hoses to the garden, I take large bowls to the garden. Oh, the bowls aren’t your average bowls. I mean BIG bowls. I scour thrift stores for BIG sturdy bowls—ones that won’t fold with cucumber and zucchini weight. Wide enough for heaping mounds of Blue Lake pole green beans. Some are white or blue, metal or plastic. Super large sieves, too, make there way into the garden and then to the kitchen sink.

Oh, I’m sorry if I’m wearing you out with all my detail, but it’s fun. I really mean it. Sure it’s back breaking, so to speak, and hot and sweaty. All time consuming.

Plant the seed, cultivate and weed, and you shall reap. Buttttttttt, you MUST perverse the harvest.

That’s work, but it is fun. I think I will tape this article on the counter while I can or freeze, just to remind myself of what I just said..

Preserving needs a plan too. Research and planning before the harvest will greatly help one to have lasting fruit.

When the season has come to an end and you know you have followed the planting, harvesting, and preserving directions, you will have your rewards. So go and be fruitful!

P.S. Ella thanks you for your prayers. She says life is once again pretty good here on the Shanklin’s 3.3.