Musings of a Local Foodie

This week, I was so sick that we had to pay a relative to brave the lush garden beds to bring in a tiny fraction of this year's harvest. He discovered a couple dozen acorn squash, spread over two beds and three walkways, five pounds of red potatoes, a gallon or so of green beans, a giant box of beets and a gallon or two of carrots, a quart of elderberries, various and sundry greens and a flat of super juicy tomatoes. I'm guessing that most of the food came from seeds that we paid no more than five dollars for. The squash alone would have cost more than that at the local market. As much as I would like to say that I was born with farmer blood, the opposite is probably closer to the truth. My wife and I spent less than three days total on the garden this year, most of it pulling waist height weeds and harvesting peas, turnips, broccoli, and various herbs. If I had been healthy I might not have wanted to brave the garden because of the "mosquito problem". The last sixty days brought nearly twenty inches of rain. The last storm alone dropped seven and 1/4 inches on our "neck of the woods". The local meteorologists say that it only rained about three inches,(2.87 to be exact)but that was at the airport on the opposite side of town.
As the local mosquito population has risen, the urge to be out in the garden has decreased, so things were pretty much on their own until this week. We finally got a mosquito control system that we just love. Garlic oil concentrate. We mix up a gallon or two in our sprayer and dose the yard and garden, making it possible to actually get in there and do things. There used to be a veritable cloud of the little blood suckers no matter where you went in the yard and garden, but after two applications in as many days, they seem to be staying away.
I'm just amazed that with no more than a passing interest, the annual removal of mulch and the planting of some tiny seeds, even with virtually no weeding, the earth can be so incredibly productive. I have garlic, a few leeks for seed, two kinds of potatoes, several varieties of tomatoes and a dozen other food crops, all burgeoning from a space not much larger than out kitchen. The acorn squash, perhaps, is the most impressive. It is a rouge survivor of the last winter's compost pile. From that one tiny seed came tendrils that wind up and over the pea trellis, two garden beds and if we had not gotten out there this week, it might just have engulfed the other half of the garden. We've gotten at least a dozen squash plants so far and the vines are still covered with blossoms. Who needs to fret about a percentage or two in the stock, or real estate market when a single discarded seed can come back and feed you through the coming winter? I have access to several garden beds across the street, as well as those in my own back yard, but the simple truth is that I am too lazy to walk the two hundred feet back and forth to those garden beds.
My asparagus tastes as good as that which I can harvest from the plot at our rental, but the whole bed is closer than even the first plant across the street. I could grow a lot more tomatoes if I pressed even a single bed into service over there, but the delicious red fruits taste better when they come from less than fifty feet from my kitchen door, decidedly better than if they were from over two hundred feet away. I would love to have a bit more dirt close at hand and under my authority, but for now, I'm doing my best just to keep up with the harvest as it is. Do I really want more when I can barely handle the surplus that exists already? I would love to write more, but my responsibilities to the harvest are calling.