September 9, 2026
Last week, David and I headed to the city which
is only about twenty minutes from our small town. We needed to pick up his new
glasses. He’d gotten a new prescription about a year ago, and then last fall he
was having difficulties seeing. After an exam, he was told that he needed
cataract surgery for both eyes.
That happened in January and March. His
left eye had presented a bit of a challenge and took longer to heal. But
finally by mid spring, all was well. He made an appointment, because it was time
to visit his regular optometrist to get a new prescription.
Fortunately, the place where we purchase
our glasses allowed him to bring in the frames he’d bought last year and have
them fitted with new lenses.
After getting the glasses, we made a stop
at a local farm-market. We bought a dozen ear of corn—three to eat that night with
supper and the rest to be put in bags and into the freezer, once the kernels had
been stripped from the cobs. I also had it in mind to purchase six or so large
field tomatoes for stuffing. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any tomatoes that
big, but I bought a small basket of good-sized ones, for sandwiches and burgers
and such.
As we were out and about, I noticed
something that seemed very odd to me. Here it was the first days of September.
Usually, at this point, the lawns in our area are varying shades of brown with
very few green highlights scattered among them. But this year, we didn’t have
any browning of the local yards at all. It had been hot enough for that, and
the sun had at times beat down upon us unmercifully.
However, it has been so wet here this
year, that the grass remained green and vibrant. And required a lot more
cutting than just the summer before. I looked up the stats just to be official,
but I knew that the rainfall for the last two months had been more than double
that of the previous year. I knew that because my arthritis has been screaming
at me since early August.
Now, about buying those tomatoes. I was
trying to be patient, waiting for ours to get big and to ripen. But I must have
been prescient that day. Because, you see, yesterday the bottom fell out of the
wooden garden that our larger variety tomato plants had been growing.
Quite literally.
The garden was fine yesterday morning when
daughter left for work. But when she returned in the afternoon, there it was, bottom
slats broken, dirt on the ground, and tomato plants mangled beyond repair. She rescued
what unripened fruit she could. There wasn’t much there. It was a sad moment
for me. For daughter? A bit less so. She has the realistic attitude that shit
happens, and crying over spilled milk—or tomatoes—does no good whatsoever.
Of the other three wooden table gardens that
we have, one is solid—because our son made it for his dad and brought it just ahead
of Father’s Day this year. But the others are rotting. We’re going to have to
come up with a solution for next spring, of course, and we will.
There was plenty of rain this year, but there
was not nearly enough sunshine to help those tomatoes grow. Although one of our
cherry tomato plants over preformed. That one plant gave us both the “cherry sized”
fruit as well as a few that are about the size of Roma tomatoes. Weird.
Part of our problem is the ever-growing
cedars in our back yard. They’re planted on the hill but doing a slow encroachment,
shade-wise, over the lower yard. There are plans to trim those trees next month.
But it’s also not good for the gardens to receive the “droppings” from the
cedars, those seeds that the squirrels like to gather. Something about adding
unwanted substances to the garden soil. Or so I’ve been told.
Daughter also planted beets and Spanish onions
and two zucchini plants this year. But she put them in large pots and set them
along the back walkway, between our gated and too shady back yard and the side
street on the south side of our house. Those plants get full sun from morning
to about three in the afternoon, when the sun is not obstructed by clouds.
Those plants done ok, but again, they
could have thrived with more sunshine.
Farmers the world over will tell you that
of all the ways there are for one to earn their living, counting on crops is
the riskiest. That’s a truth we’ve always known, one that applies even to hobby
gardening..
We’ll appreciate all we reap for the remainder
of this growing season. And then, come the spring, will implement whatever new
ideas we develop.
The fun really is in the trying.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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