Not dead yet
It usually takes giving a tour to someone unfamiliar with the gardens for me to view the place with new eyes. Like a beloved, sometimes you just can’t get enough distance to really see what’s going on. I had a visitor this weekend and, despite the constant attention I have recently given the outdoor gardens when putting them “to bed,” my friend said quite clearly:
“There’s still a lot of stuff growing out here, isn’t there?”
Indeed! So I have made many furtive trips to the gardens, harvesting what I can. The resultant food I call my “As God is my Witness”*meals: there’s much still to harvest in the leavings, in the gleanings, in the tail-ends of what’s still in the ground. And this is a good thing. Much can be learned from making a meal out of these not-pretty cast-offs. And it makes me feel…rich. Wealthy beyond reason, and certainly beyond sense.
I’ll never be hungry again.
*Scarlett O’Hara, upon finding, then throwing up, the only vegetable in her Yankee-raided garden: “As God is my witness, as God is my witness they’re not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this and when it’s all over, I’ll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.”
Glad you came to visit!
Got something to say? Email me at fastweedpuller at gmail dot com.
fast grow the weeds 
I feel like that when I make something out of old curtains.
I so totally got your reference when you made it!
What a beautiful garden you have! I love the layout. Mmm…makes mine seem rather shabby by comparison. And weedy. I think my garden blog should be retitled “The Lazy Gardener”, because even though I feel like I spend most of the summer working in it, it never seems to be under control. I need a better weed solution!
Your garden looks so neat and tidy!!
I adore Scarlett, she’s so perfectly dramatic.
I had to smile at this post as I refuse to touch any of my “nice” undercover crops until I have exhausted all of the gardens leftovers. This drives my wife crazy, but usually provides us with lots of food all through November.
I think it is possible that Vivien Leigh was blessed with having one of the greatest lines in a movie…ever. I hope to some day read the novel.
Mike! hah, I do the same thing, thinking there’s no way I can eat the greenhouse veggies now (salad is ok). And do try to read the book. A lot more stuff in there than in the movie.
Lately I feel that way just getting my fridge full again! Meals? Plenty of meals in there finally! But when relatives visit, they think there is “nothing to eat” because it needs to be cooked!
I love scrounging together a meal from a handful of this and that in the corners of the fridge – a little pasta or a handful of lentils, some garlic…. and odd veggies….
It will be lovely being able to harvest it myself next year…
Pasta and garden tailings are a mainstay around here. Your garden does look nice, though. I’ve got to get my rear in gear and do the winter clean up around this place!
I see Thanksgiving salad!
Pamela, hah!
Hello, Paula. Good; glad I didn’t have to be completely referential to everyone…. And I love the name of your blog!
Ellen, hah, yeah, but there’re still weeds out there! I’ve reached something of an agreement with weeds. It just means I have to mulch more than I weed. I don’t often show pics of the whole garden (and indeed aren’t here either) but yeah, it’s tidy for a change so I took a pic!
Hello Leiah, yay, I love all these new commenters with similar interests! It’s only tidy 2x a year, I swear, otherwise it’s madness…controlled madness but madness nonetheless.
Oh yeah, Mike, and what also happens is you get to eat a lot of the things that aren’t necessarily on the “favorites” list with your family at this time of year, just to use them up. This time of year? Swiss chard!
Hayden, it WILL be lovely, and you’ll be doing the same darned thing with your garden substituting for your refrigerator. Point of fact, I never have produce in the fridge; it’s all pick and eat! But yeah, people don’t quite realize how much skinnier you actually get if your food has to be MADE before you eat it 🙂
Stef, baby steps. Unless you’re a work-all-day-don’t-bug-me kind of gal. I just try to bite off small bits at a time, because that is all I ever seem to have: small bits…probably more the case with you, I would imagine. But here, yeah, there’s that added deadline of “snowfall” that tends to make a girl rally toward tidiness.
Nana, just you wait! But indeed, salads are mostly in the greenhouse affairs now….