Harvest Season

There's really nothing like it.
Admittedly, it's a lot of hard work, and kneeling or sitting on mulch-covered--and this morning, still wet after last night's rain--ground isn't my favorite thing in the world. Being mildly allergic to the fruits you are harvesting removes some of the pleasure. But there's really nothing like the pleasure that comes from harvesting a garden.
It's a pleasure that increases as you grow older. Harvesting was not high on my list of Things I Like when I was younger. It was hot, I didn't like having to sit on the mulch, and you never knew when you were going to be contending with a squadron of bugs for the same plant. (The one year I can recall harvesting peaches, for example, became a nightmare when we started competing with every variety of wasp in Randall County, if not the bloomin' Texas Panhandle. Yeep!) Nor was I crazy about the workload of canning that followed.
That has changed since I moved out and had to buy my own food. It has changed even more since I noticed the ridiculous increase in price connected with fresh fruits and vegetables.
Now there is pride. There is contentment. We have food, even if it does have an unpleasant effect on my lower intestines. We have food we did not have to pay for. Even better, we have food we were not entirely sure was going to show up at all, considering how badly the tomatoes appeared to be doing earlier in the year. It is food we grew. I felt much the same when I went out to harvest our only crop of green beans a few months ago. However little it was--and we had a puling green bean harvest--it was ours.
Now, it is possible to have too much of a good thing, but I don't think that will be the case this year, considering how small most of our harvests were. Still, we've frozen enough pumpkin to have pies and muffins probably up to next year's ripening, the okra and peppers were enthusiastic enough for us to bring a box of fresh produce to be given away at every Mass for nearly two months, and the corn, after a sad, slow start, received a rainstorm just in time for it to explode into growth and production. I was not here for that harvest, but the other girls bragged about how much corn they shucked, and I suspect that the frozen corn will last us a good long while.
And whether you are putting up corn, or pumpkin, or ensuring a supply of hot sauce for the next several months...you are making your own food. And that is a Good Thing.