Something Of A Harvest

Right now, I’m thankful for herbs. For the sage and oregano holding their own in the herb bed, now engulfed by a riot of cosmos blooms, for the patch of basil and parsley that I popped into an empty corner of the flower bed at the back of the house on a late June day, for the spiky top of chives falling over itself by the front steps. For the wild mint growing in the shady spot down by the river.

Because, for the second summer in a row, there’s no vegetable garden growing in the plot across the back lawn. There’s no tangle of tomato vines, heavy with fruit. There are no carrots in the dirt with their orange shoulders showing off. No lanky green beans. No curly, dark kale. No crisp cucumbers. Considering this, it’s easy to think there is no harvest. Nothing to preserve. Nothing of the homegrown variety to put in jars and line the larder shelves with in preparation for the coming winter.

But, there are the herbs, thank goodness, ready to be snipped, washed, dried, and stored away. There’s the peach truck that’s come through, and Speedy (yes, that’s his name), down from Montana with his truck full of sweet corn. He charges $10 a dozen and puts fourteen in your bag (“I always give extra,” he says in his Spanish accent). And, of course, there were the strawberries and rhubarb, made into jam in June.

My harvest is unique this year, but it’s something of a harvest, nonetheless. Whether the quantity and variety is a little or a lot, and whether it’s come from my garden or another’s, I’ve found that the feeling of provisioning is just the same, settling the heart as the jars slide onto the larder shelves. Caring, keeping, storing up.

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