Be Patient with Me Please

The vegetable garden has been a test of our patience over the summer. There have been times that I wondered if we would reap anything from all of our hard work.

 When it finally warmed up enough in the spring we carefully planted our vegetables and herbs hoping that all chances of frost were behind us. Since it was a cool spring things were not quick to flourish and it seemed that we would never see vegetables. As the first blossoms appeared we were filled with hope and anticipation.

The first obstacle we encountered was a woodchuck; one morning I ventured out and the tops of my lettuce had been devoured. Ugh!! So we set out the Havahart trap, and once he had been captured we drove him a great distance away so he could find a new home. A sigh of relief and hope once again for the garden.

Unfortunately it was false hope…within a few days a woodchuck struck again. Setting the trap once more we found that this one was not so quick to be fooled. It took quite some time to be rid of the second one to find out that he had a buddy. The woodchucks were blossoming more than the vegetables.

Our yard finally was free of woodchucks, but not before the lettuce was destroyed, a cucumber plant, and the top of one of the potato plants. After replanting things 3 times after last year’s woodchuck debacle, I decided to move forward with what we had.

In July and early August we would normally be eating tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers and squash, but all of these were slow to come. Initially we were lucky to get enough green beans for one meal. The cucumber plant had only one cucumber growing, and in the end it died on the vine. At times I feared that we would roll into fall without much of a harvest.

Eventually near mid to late August the tomatoes were multiplying quickly, we had several green peppers and more to look forward to as we neared fall. Home grown fresh vegetables were a wonderful addition to our dinner table.

Overall it has been a decent harvest in spite of the late start. The only thing that did not produce were the eggplant, or so we thought. In the process of gathering the vegetables for the season and clearing out the garden, we discovered one lone eggplant growing on the vine. There it was, healthy and beautiful, looking at us as if it was saying “be patient with me, I’m not quite ready”.

And so we will abide by her wishes until she is ready to be taken from the vine.