my garden

Gardeners will be gathering more first fruits from their gardens and farmers will cut hay to feed their livestock. And farm families are just as likely to be harvesting from their own gardens as we did on our home farm.

It’s a busy season, gathering crops and picking peas, beans, tomatoes and corn among other things. I learned as a child that harvest days were not days to drive to the beach for a swim, but we could participate in activities on evenings when the baler and tractor were in the drive shed, or on a Sunday.

Then the holiday Sunday in August — known in Ontario as the Civic Holiday— when every member of the church and the pastor got a day free to do what they liked. That’s when Mom, Dad, my sisters, and I went to Ipperwash, with our aunt and uncle and cousins and a picnic lunch. Neighbours often showed up there too.

Flowers are loving the rain and sunshine

I remember inviting a friend from the city to come with me to the farm to pick raspberries one July day. They were heading off to their cottage, but the raspberries were on that week, nearing the end of their growth cycle for the season. “You’re going to miss them,” I said. One year she did go with me and picked berries and enjoyed the experience. We still talk about that day.

What can we take from this? Enjoy the bounty of the crops. Share the extras. Store up the excess for winter. Appreciate and give thanks.

When I canned peaches, I often called them “summer sunshine” when I took a jar off the cold room shelf on a cold winter day.

pots of herbs

All summer is thanksgiving, for me, with the array of fresh fruits and vegetables, so recently picked from the field or garden. Farmers and market gardeners do celebrate later when all the crops are in, and yet we can give thanks throughout the growing season.

“All good gifts around us…” as the hymn writer declared, “are sent from heaven above.”  Even though we humans do the work to plant, hoe, gather, and prepare, creation makes it possible to do these things, and that’s where the gift comes in.

cucumbers growing