bounty

When I moved into this house in May, my first act of residence was to put in a small garden. I had heard about a local garden center and before the first box was unpacked I had brought home a load of baby plants: tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, basil, zucchini, sugar snap peas, sunflowers and black-eyed susans. There was so much hope in moving to Saint Paul, to being established in a graduate school program, to being further north and closer to true wilderness, to getting out of Iowa and away from the dark cloud of malaise that has followed me for the last three years. Planting seemed the thing to do and tomatoes were the most likely culprit. I only came home with two zucchini, four peppers and a handful of spices, but the tomato plant count, to my chagrin, wound up at ten.

I have watched the tomato plants go from little seedlings to wild bushes over the course of the short summer, and their fruit has started to ripen this week, first one, then two, and now more than I can count and keep track of. I have found myself scrambling for tomato-heavy recipes and passing around containers of cherry tomatoes at clinicals to try and lighten my load.

Last week, one of the dogs went after a rabbit in the yard. He ended up in the middle of my small garden with her in his mouth, spinning with the pleasure of the hunt, mowing down all of my careful plantings, now nearing fruition of their own. For all the destruction wrecked, not a single tomato plant was touched, and they continue to shower me with new ripe fruit every day.

In addition to my enthusiastic embracing of the garden, I signed up for a CSA in early spring. Even though we have always had trouble eating all of our CSA shares the few times we’ve experimented with getting them, and even though I am here alone for most of the weeks these days, the hope and goodwill I felt in finding a likely local prospect and depositing my money for a summer’s worth of fresh produce felt like a positive step towards being here, being in this place which I have endowed with so much hope.

The CSA has proven, as that little voice deep down warned me, to be far, far too much. There is no way, even on my best weeks with salads at nearly every meal and veggies roasting in bulk in the oven (in this steamy, unairconditioned house!) that I can consume all I have committed to. I have had a whole cabbage go bad for want of using it, and the weight of failure to eat so much green has been heavy and growing these last weeks. It is assuaged somewhat by the presence of a fantastic organics composting program in the city, so at least these slowly rotting veggies aren’t contributing to a landfill, but the truth remains. I overstepped my own capabilities as a consumer by signing up for the bounty of this particular harvest.

And yet I don’t regret either of these things. I have tomatoes coming out my ears, but I am relishing every delicious home-grown bite. And the overburden of vegetables from the CSA has forced me to attempt things in the kitchen that are far beyond my comfort zone. With, generally, good success. For all the moments I feel overwhelmed by the amount of fresh things in my kitchen, I am as grateful that I’m in a place where such bounty is both possible and welcome.