Garden Abundance

A garden so clearly demonstrates the abundance of the earth.  Today’s garden bounty was amazing.   Gramma’s zucchini is out of control!!  The zucchini are so large we could use them as clubs, so heavy and plentiful I had to get Bob to carry them up to the kitchen.   I’m surprised that the large zucchini are good for eating, not woody at all.  Tonight for dinner we had zucchini soup, grilled zucchini on the barbecue and a zucchini casserole.  I should have made zucchini bread for dessert.  Bob said earlier in the day, “you ought to check out your blackberries.”  My goodness, what an abundance there was!  My blackberries like getting regular water from our new automatic watering system and the thick mulch we put over the ground to hold in the moisture.  The old Santa Rosa plum tree has been producing such an abundance, I’m overwhelmed.  It liked all the rain we had last winter.  I’ve made jam, stewed plums and Bob’s been eating many every day. There are so many left, I don’t know what I’ll do with them all.  The cherry tomatoes are just starting to ripen.  There will be a huge bounty there too.  And the sweet peas have grown more than 6 feet tall and are still blooming profusely.  Not everything is flourishing—the eggplants look emaciated and the peppers haven’t set any fruit because it isn’t hot enough here.  Every good gardener knows her garden and puts in only plants that grow well in the local micro-climate.  I’m still learning about the parameters of my new garden and it is such fun.