It's late summer here in RI. The nights are getting a bit cooler and the garden is starting its slow succumbing to Season's End.Safe to say, it has been a lack-luster garden season for us: From a slow start in spring due to wrapping up my MBA program and the birth of our third child to the rains to the blight to the lack of free time to tend it with the care necessary to nurture a decent bounty.
We did get around to planting new strawberry and asparagus beds, canning some strawberry jam (fruit from Quonset View Farm in Portsmouth), trying our hand at some new crops -- onions and beets -- with less-than-stellar results, and continuing the dream of doing even more. Again, this thing of trying to grow a bit of our own food is a learning process, one that will go on season after season.
Alas, even if we had a so-so season, it's always great to hear stories of how others are churning out their own fresh food -- and then making it last through the long, cold days of winter. Check out this great interview from an episode of NPR's "The Takeaway" this week on how canning is going mainstream.
I can't tell you how much value I believe comes from the start-to-finish process of growing and savoring your own food: patience, sustenance, awareness of the interbeing of all things, teachable moments... the list goes on.
Here's wishing you a hearty bounty during these last days of summer.
(Photo Credit: Sara Gerlach)
