The Last Vegetable

The garden is supposedly finished, but it seems we can’t get it fully emptied. Tonight, on threat of freeze, we ran out there just before bedtime, and in the light of the car’s headlights found, to our surprise, twenty watermelons, a dozen pumpkins, and a couple of straggler squash.

Now it may seem odd that we could be taken unaware by the volume of food left in our garden, but the work in putting up this year’s massive harvest has been so time consuming, so tiring, that we seem to have shut down our vision. I guess we’re afraid that another late-night canning marathon might just put us over the edge.

Of this carload, we will process and freeze one pumpkin, eat one or two melons, and then, as all the other gardneners do, give the rest away.