In Too Deep

I'm in serious trouble, folks. Nanny, my gardening and canning partner, is in the hospital and likely will be side-lined for the rest of the summer. I'd been counting on her help when I planted six rows of butterbeans and 100+ tomato plants. Now, all those ripening tomatoes and bulging bean pods seem more like a menace than a blessing. Looks like I'd best be hunting some back-up workers, eh? Poor Nanny...when I was preparing to leave the hospital Tuesday night, she put her hands over her face and moaned, "Oh, the garden...." I told her not to sweat it, that we'd recruit some grandchildren to help with the picking. It probably didn't make her feel much better; she knows that most of her grandchildren are scared of dirt, spiders, sweat, and such, and probably won't come anywhere near that garden.

When I got home from work yesterday and walked over to look at the tomato patch, I just groaned. The vines are dripping with ripe tomatoes, and the middles of the rows are hairy with tall grass. I decided the first order of business ought to be to clean out the grass, so I pulled the little black tiller from the shed and hauled it to the tomato patch. That ground hasn't been tilled in over a month, and it's harder than a rock. Little Black just whirled on top of the dirt, wrapping its tines with grass. Thinking that it might help to mow the grass, I dragged the push mower from the shed and ran it down the rows. When I went back to the tiller, it would not crank. By this time, I was dripping with sweat and more than a little irked. I put all of the garden equipment away, and went back to pick tomatoes. I picked just enough for "a canning," and brought them back to the house to process. The rest would just have to wait.

There are five rows of tomatoes. I figure that if I pick/process one row every night, I might be able to keep up with the work, with a couple of nights left over to tend to the rest of the garden. Thankfully, when I went to Nanny's yesterday to get the tiller from the shed, my brother-in-law was in the "bean garden," picking the purple hull peas. (Bless him.) I don't know what we are going to do when all of those butterbeans get ready to be picked (which isn't far off).

This morning, we're getting a good, soaking rain, which ought to help boost the crop production. Oh, joy!

Pray for me! And Nanny!

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