Garden: August 5

Here is the state of my garden as of this afternoon. It's at that nice robust stage. Slugs still lurk and munch, but they don't rule the day.

We're picking: strawberries, summer squash, basil.
Done: radishes, kale. (haven't picked the kale, but it's beyond tough & bitter)
Waiting on: tomatoes, beans, cauliflower. I bought canning jars this week and am very, very eager for the tomato harvest.

The hardest thing is to pull the dozens and dozens of buds off of my raspberry bush. You are supposed to do this the first year to make the plant invest in its roots, but I feel like an abusive parent or something discouraging the plant in its efforts to make fruit. (I also feel sad at all those berries that will never be!)

You may note the single flower that came up, an orange zinnia. I attribute this poor turnout to poor dirt and slugs. The consolation is that we pick a lot of wild flowers from the river path, so we still have decoration for the dinner table.

I learned this week that July and August, according to the church calendar, are called "Time of the Kingdom"--when everything is as it should be. (Well, we get hints of the way things should be).  Picnics, lemonade, sangria, and cheesecake are all appropriate as we envision the sweetness of the promised land flowing with milk and honey. Time of the Kingdom feels like a very fitting title when I look at my garden and realize the abundance that has sprung out of nowhere, and stuff my mouth with handfuls of wild blackberries that didn't cost a cent.

"....And there are places that burn into your soul, 
and there are graces where we glimpse what we will know."-Jim Croegaert, "Waiting."