Garden Photos and Lessons

Matt and returned home from a fun weekend of camping to a garden full of peppers waiting to be picked.  I swear they weren't ready when we left bright and early Saturday morning.  Things happen so quickly (and yet also so slowly!) in the garden. 

We are going to be eating these with dinner tonight! 

Maybe some of these Hungarian wax too.

Peppers are one of my favorite foods, but I usually cannot bear to pay store price for them so I go through long pepper droughts.  So, this bounty of ripe and ripping peppers is a happy sight for my eyes.  I like them super hot to super sweet.  I enjoy them all.  We planted what almost seemed an obscene number of pepper plants in the garden this year.   At one point I think Matt was a little hesitant, but I assured him there would be absolutely no issue with peppers going to waste if I had anything to say about it.  I am already dreaming of bright, colorful stir fry, or stuffed peppers, or chili, or pepper coulis, roasted red pepper-tomato soup, or peppers on top of pizza, or raw peppers just for snacking, or roasted pepper hummus, and so on.  Mmmmmmmmm.....peppers.

 

Slowly, very slowly, the tomatoes are starting to color.  It is still limited to one plant really, but I am encouraged none the less that tomato sauce is in my near future.  Soon enough I keep telling myself. 

I really like how the roma tomatoes grow in little clusters or bunches like this.  I don't know why exactly.  I just find it aesthetically pleasing.

But on that note, I should mention how much I appreciate the surprise lessons of gardening.  I always assumed I'd learn things about plants and soil and bugs, and whatnot.  While I am super jazzed as I continue to learn about all that I am even more jazzed by the things I never expected the garden to teach me.  Like patience.  And gratitude.  And the satisfaction achieved through a sweaty brow covered with dirt.

I've never been so grateful for my food when I attempt to follow the seasons and not just run off to the store to buy more at a whim.  When it was May and I wanted tomatoes, but had to wait until August the tomatoes became quite special.  I've no doubt I will savor and appreciate them immensely as a result when time finally comes to pick them.  If I'd just run off to the store that wouldn't happen.  It would just be food.  Not a miracle.  Which it is if you ask me. 

My garden has also forced me to learn patience--good things are worth waiting for after all-- such as when I watch the red spreading across the green little tomato fruits.  Or watch the pea pods slowly starting to swell.  Or going even further back, as we anxiously await the little seeds to germinate way back when the cold winds were still blowing.  These lessons were unexpected for me and I think just as valuable as the food.