It's time to tear up the garden and return it to a fallow place.
The pests have abated noticeably with the cooler weather--I can have cherry tomato branches lying on the ground and nobody eats the ripe fruit! Also, my eggplant has resurrected from the dead, and has FLOWERS. (This plant only produced one eggplant all year). See them? They're purple. Some kind of pest gave this plant a really hard time all summer--I was sure it was dead.
Going out in a blaze of marigold glory.
One of the most important benefits of gardening (or gleaning or finding wild food) is that you find yourself in places of abundance from time to time (e.g. in the height of tomato season). This is important, I think. For tightwads like myself, it frees me up to try resource-intensive projects, like making tomato sauce or pesto. I would probably not attempt these things if I had to pay grocery-store prices for the ingredients, but when I get them for free I don't feel bad using a lot. More importantly, though, it's a window into what I think is our true situation--we are provided for abundantly. The things we have are still freely given by God whether we have to purchase them or not; we don't have the power to secure anything for ourselves ultimately. It's all a gift. We sigh with relief--we're not in charge, and there's enough to go around.
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