As the growing season comes to an abrupt end and I’m scrambling to pick frost-sensitive plants, a simple lesson from Nature has appeared this year - Survive.
Every gardener and farmer knows that we are constantly at the mercy of the weather. Everything from starting seeds, to growing productive crops, to being able to sell the bounty. And this year was rough.
The media is unable to put together an adequate picture of the complexities of our food system. Even publications that focus on farm and global markets often spew out skewed information that confuses the masses. For example, many sources made the claimed we were heading for a record harvest. In reality, an abundance of rain in the early part of summer allowed for disease to set in. Hail and flooding damaged specialty crops, such as the ones you find at farmer’s markets. Crops everywhere - and not just row crops - suffered greatly. And technology did not save us in the least.
This season has hit home the lesson of all life being one big delicate balance. Nothing is guaranteed, no income is secured. Survival is dependent on the actions we take to prepare for the future, not what we think we can control. We can check the Weather, but we can’t change it. We can plant a seed, but it may not sprout. We can tend a garden and build a fence, yet a squirrel might find it’s way up the corn stalk anyway.
Regardless of the troubling harvest season, it exists nonetheless. I was able to find a few corn that weren’t eaten straight off the cob, pick dozens of cherry tomatoes even if they were to be a different variety, snack on one very large watermelon before picking the other two decent sized fruits from my little melon patch, and locate some beautifully unique varieties of pumpkins at the local pumpkin patch. The Christmas beans may have been the only true abundant harvest, although that remains to be seen as they are still drying on the vine.
Nature provided, just not in mass abundance. Still, it feels like it may be just enough to survive.
There were not as many pumpkins and gourds this season as there has been in the past. This display was mostly obtained from a local pumpkin patch, with the one “duck” gourd being from my own garden. I did not get near the variety of gourds and pumpkins that I should have, based on the number of seeds scattered. Some pumpkin patches in the area were not even able to open this year due to lack of crops.