Garden Harvest Time!

Show Me Your Pics

It’s that time of year when gardeners post their hard-won harvests on social media. Something about this somewhat-new tradition warms my heart immensely. I love scrolling through them all. Our baskets and buckets runneth over for the most part, pictures of plenty. Bouquets of crayon-colored flowers and vegetables tended and gathered with sweat and gratitude.

We post these photos with almost as much pride as we do pictures of our family. And we expect people to ooh and ahh over the fruits of our labor as if we were showing them the cutest baby ever born.

There are also the self-deprecating shots of a sparser lot, a few tomatoes, a single pepper, and a misshapen squash. I take them in with empathy and admiration. Who knows where these gardeners are on their growing journey. Maybe they’re faced with erratic weather, lack of time or energy, emotional upheaval, or just bad luck. We are told that we never know what people are going through. This is surely true of gardeners too.

My book-busy schedule this year did not lend itself to huge success even though I tried to scale back and keep it simple. Even after all these years, I noted things I need to re-think and change for next year.

No matter the size of our harvest, it is always a learning experience. What can we do better next year? What varieties do we plant again? What tasted so, so good? What can we do without? Should we make changes with soil, sunlight, or water? The list goes on. But the key phrase is next year, because one of the biggest benefits of growing your own flowers, fruits, and vegetables is that sense of optimism we can’t escape. We keep looking forward.

It’s important to understand that growing your own is so rewarding but not an easy road, leading us to be more thankful to the farmers both big and small that feed us and our families.

Here are a few pictures of my harvests through the years. What tasty memories!

Happy harvests to everyone!