The last of the last of the last
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
Last night I picked the last of the last of the tomatoes. Several weeks ago I thought they'd freeze, but they didn't. This fall weather keeps playing tricks on me.
When my aunt Frieda came to visit from Wichita, I scoured the garden for the last of the tomatoes, "Here's the last of them," I said sadly. Mom split the bounty between herself and her sister and said, "My, they've been so good. I'll miss them." Then she turned and said, "Have I shown you? We have lots of tomatoes," she exalted as they headed in the general direction of the pantry and all those shelves brimming with harvest bounty.
Then when we had this streak of cold weather, I took pity on the last of my tomato plants and covered them with loose hay, because I was afraid they'd freeze for sure. They survived and kept on ripening. So once more, I picked the last of the last. "Only little ones?" My mother was just slightly disappointed that the harvest of luscious Big Boys was over. She had to wait until TTT tilled his sister's garden, and Sandra sent back the last of her tomatoes — they were large lovely beauties.
My sister wasn't sorry that the tomato season was over. She looked dubiously at the pan full of cherry tomatoes I hauled in last night. She's been buying store-bought tomatoes for a couple of weeks now. She likes the predictability of buying things in a grocery store. Greenhouse tomatoes sold in bright red mesh bags, "Just one please," she can say. She especially enjoys cherry tomatoes in neat plastic containers. She likes her windowsills free of ripening fruit and her refrigerator purged of the gardening glut. (That's NOT true, she says as she reads over my shoulder! so I have to add a disclaimer quote.)
"That isn't totally true," says my sister, "I just don't want it rotting in there." Her eyes roll toward the bulging crisper drawers. "Didn't you also pick the last of the peppers?" she asks. "What are you going to do with all of those?"
When my eyes widen as I peruse seed catalogs in the spring, she says with a teacher's tone, "Remember last year? No one wants THAT MANY cucumbers!" This year, I did receive some grace for growing excess cucumbers because I made lots of dill pickles. I held my breath as Jess tasted them. "These are yummy!" she said. "She likes them!" I called out to the garden, "we'll make MORE."
My mother tries to explain my excitement over small gardening miracles to my more citified sister. "She has a gardener's heart," Mom says and Mom knows where I got it — from her! So, it is my delight to offer succulent gardener's treats to my mother. While I enjoy the fruit of our labor on my own table, I enjoy even more taking them across the road to her. She knows how many peas you have to pick to make a mess of peas. She knows how long it takes before you get your first tomato and how exciting it is to slice that first cucumber. I brought her the youngest green beans, the newest potatoes, flower bouquets galore, fresh dill, and tender onions. It was indeed a gardener's pleasure! The only thing she didn't know what to do with was basil. "I never taught you to use that!" says the woman who only seasons with salt.
Last night when I picked the last of the last of the last, I brought Dad's tractor over and roto-tilled our little plot of gardening space. The Utech siblings were at Erich's house raking leaves which they brought over to my garden and I tilled them under to enrich the soil. Roto-tilling is like wiping the blackboard clean. During the winter months I'll read my seed catalogs and make my list of Tendercrop beans, Golden Yukon potatoes, Jet Star tomatoes, and Burpless cucumbers.
For two turns of a season, my sister will have her refrigerator space organized in crisper drawers and neat, plastic containers fresh from Mexico, South America, or Southern California — someone else's garden. And I will dream of another day in the country when we can once again start planting seeds.
