Today's Garden

I am not very happy with my garden this year and have to admit, it has a lot to do with the gardener. My weed control failed; the straw wasn't laid thick enough and I spent too little time tending to it. But despite that neglect, this morning I again brought in buckets of Roma, Sungold, and yellow pear tomatoes. And, the fennel is ready. The corn looks good, too, but last year, the ears never quite matured.

Every year for the last five years, I've had the garden expanded. Looking it it now, I am thinking scaling back is in order, unless I hit the Lottery and hire a gardener. And a cook, too, because I wasn't planning on having to do something with tomatoes all day today, but I think that is what I must do.

I thought about making salsa, but I don't have enough peppers. There's not quite enough tomatoes to justify making a huge batch of Italian sauce, "gravy" to put up. So it might be just stewed tomatoes. Plain, but useful, my French Canadian memere canned them every year until she was well into her 80's. She and my grandfather always had a big garden, at their house, and then after they sold the place, they had a smaller one in a community garden at their apartment complex. Memere grew up on a farm in St. Valerian, in Canada, the eldest of thirteen, and she knew how to make everything from scratch. Waste not, want not.

The elderly couple that owned our house before us were French Canadian, too. They used every bit of space on this few acres, and of course had an expansive garden. When we cleaned out the basement we found a dusty cabinet full of canned tomatoes and canning supplies. The attic was stocked with dried bunches of herbs, long forgotten. The daughters told us about their pig pen, up in the southwestern corner of the property, their chicken coop, and the milking cows and horses for pulling the milk wagon.

It's nostalgic to think about an idyllic farm scene, and pleasant to do, but memere always said that working in the mills in Fall River was a lot easier than working on the farm. I can believe that. But today, for a short time, I'll continue the tradition and put up tomatoes.