WRITING PROMPT RESPONSE

Nature’s Bounty in Fall’s Prettiest Appearance

When a season paints the world in colors and tasty bites

September is the month of the harvest of your hard work. At least when you’re a gardener. For sure you’ll be harvesting throughout the year. But never as much as during September.

In September you’ll receive it all in abundance. Berries, grapes, potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, apples, pears, and all kinds of other fruits and vegetables. September surely stands for nature’s bounty.

But what does that actually mean? Bounty? Some of my readers might not be aware of it but English isn’t my mother tongue. And it isn’t my second language either. More like my fourth. So it isn’t uncommon for me to look up a word or two while writing an article.

I actually always have my translation app open in the background. Sometimes, just to make sure. To make sure I’m using a word out of my vocabulary in the right context. Sometimes, to figure out I’ve said something wrong all those years (why does nobody ever correct me? How am I supposed to improve and learn that way?)

And sometimes I simply use the app to get the meaning of a word I didn’t know. Like this one. When I read Dennett’s writing prompt for September with the topic of “nature’s bounty” I kind of knew what it was about. But I kind of did not know the word “bounty”.

And sometimes a simple translation isn’t enough to understand a word. Then I’ll go a step further and Google “bounty meaning”. This will ensure that I won’t forget about the word within the blink of an eye but eventually take it up into my vocabulary.

Bounty: “something that is given generously” — Merriam-Webster Dictionary

So here you go. Now you know enough about the word to write about it. Or not? In the next step, I act as if I know what I’m talking about. Trying to improve in the world wide web is essential for your survival.

Here’s mine.

Let me talk about…

Nature’s Bounty

When I first read the writing prompt I had to think of my parents' garden. Immediately. Before looking up the word. Maybe because of the topic of tomatoes that was mentioned as well. My parents had enough tomatoes this year for them to sell the airlines tomato juice. Yes, they had that many tomatoes they couldn’t eat them all. My mom ended up making liters and liters of tomato juice.

Anyone (except for airlines) in need of tomato juice?

Let’s not get distracted. Nature’s Bounty. Right. Even without knowing the exact meaning, I knew I would write about my parents' garden. There is an abundance of what nature offers us.

But I was far away from their garden in September. To be exact 200-600 kilometers away for most of the month. Doesn’t help if you talk about something when you can’t show them the pictures.

So here I am. Two days before the month’s end. Surrounded by nature’s abundance in my parents' garden. With my camera in hand and the finger on the shutter. Looking for nature’s bounty.

The harvesting season has come to an end and I am a bit late to the party but I’ll share with you what I still found out here. And because I think flowers are part of nature’s bounty even if we can’t eat them (all), I put some pretty floral shots in between.

Dad’s winery

Not only my grandma knows about my dad’s famous quality wine. His wines have traveled as far as Namibia on the African continent. And I’m sure my aunt had also brought some bottles to the States.

His best wine is surely the berry wine. Berry wine production for this year is completed. But the grapes are also there for some different wine and the first ones he picked today and got a few liters of juice out of it.

While he’s using his berry wine to gift it to friends and family, his good white grape wine is only for us. Almost exclusively for “Glühwein” which is a German tradition of serving hot wine on Christmas markets. Usually, it is way too sweet and unnatural.

Not so much my dad’s Glühwein. First of all, he’s using his own wine for it and secondly, he doesn’t use the red but the white wine instead. The result is priceless.

And this is only his small press. He got it years back from a long-past uncle from Romania. He has a bigger press these days, but for small amounts, this little workhorse comes back into use and does its job.

Apples and more apples

My parents absolutely love apples and all kinds of fruits they can grow in their garden. All the apple trees in this garden plot have been planted within my lifetime. I would say none of them are older than 15 years.

I’ve watched them grow from the beginning and can’t believe these days how tall they are. But then again, I’ve grown as well and I’m not that young anymore. I’m just not aware of it, haha.

I asked my dad if I could help him with anything. He told me to pick all the apples from two of the trees. Sure, no problem. I thought.

When I inspected the trees I realized he had picked most of the apples already. At least those accessible from the ground or the ladder. He left me those in the treetops and on the far sides of the branches. Of course, he’s a smart man.

Now I got to climb those “not so big trees” and hold and step onto the “not so big branches” to get those few apples left up there.

This reminded me of times when I was still a kid. We had a different garden. It was a piece of land surrounded by all farmer's land. We had some berries and one big cherry tree. I was probably around 7 years old and my dad send me to the top and pick all the cherries I could reach. Because I was small and young those branches at the edges could hold me. I never feared falling.

I was a kid. Kids don’t fear anything.

But now I do. Because that branch under my left foot is enough to hold a seven-year-old child but not the almost 30-year old me. I’m looking down, stretching for that one Apple far out. It cracks. I ignore the sound and hold tight onto the stem.

Until I have them all. Every single apple.

The last challenge is waiting for me.

Getting off that tree again. Nobody ever tells you that climbing down is more tricky than climbing up again. No pictures of this process are available. It’s better like that. Trust me.

The last of the berry season

Most of it is over. Of the berry season. But the garden was in abundance of red, black, white, and whatever else colored berries. I still got a taste of a few that were left.

With all the berries from our garden, my parents had lots of work to do. Of course, they eat a lot of them. Just as they are. But there are more berries than one can eat. So my parents made my jam. Strawberry jam. Raspberry jam. Blackberry jam. Redcurrant jam. Maybe also blackcurrant jam? And I’m sure I forgot something.

My mom made countless cakes and pies.

And of course, my dad made wine. Lots of wine. Until there were no more berries left.

Except these. These few berries were left for me to capture and to taste. Because there is nothing like self-grown berries. And there’s nothing like picking berries and putting them right into your mouth. That flavor.

Tomatoes from the greenhouse

My parents always used to grow tomatoes. Early in the year, my dad would plant them in our flat in small pots. Then carefully he would let them adapt to the cold outside on our balcony. Until they were finally ready for the garden.

But then lots of rain would often damage the fruits. These days he exclusively grows them in the greenhouse. Now he has a greenhouse, let’s put it that way.

And yes, I mentioned at the top already that they had lots and lots of tomatoes this year. More than any family could eat. So my mom started making tomato juice out of the tomatoes they couldn’t eat.

They have all kinds of tomatoes in the garden. Cocktail tomatoes. Beef tomatoes. Small tomatoes. Big tomatoes. Yellow tomatoes. Red tomatoes.

And this is what I still found.

Zucchini, cucumber, and other veggies

There are so many other vegetables my parents grow in the garden. But I'm not going to cover them all. Most of them are anyway already harvested. Others hidden underneath a thick layer of massive leaves.

But I got a few more nice shots of zucchini flowers where you can see the zucchinis when looking carefully at the picture. And then there are some special cucumbers. Baby cucumber. They look to me like decorative ones but apparently, they are edible.

And one more of dad’s spicy peppers. Or chilis. I think that’s the right word in English. I called them trumpet-chili because of the weird shape.

Floral beauty of nature’s bounty

And then there are still countless flowers blooming all across the gardens. Back in the day, my dad wasn’t into flowers. My mom anyway never had a connection to anything blooming that didn’t grow edible fruits.

I brought floral beauty into their garden and when I left they kept them. The flowers. And these days even my mom sometimes buys a pot of flowers for the garden. Things happen they don’t actually seem real.

I found these pink rose petals on the terrace. From the morning mist, some drops of water stayed behind. Worth taking a closer look at things sometimes.

Flowers truly represent nature’s bounty to me. Just look at all the beauty nature has to offer. Look at all those shining glories.

I walked around after I finished helping my dad capturing as many different flowers as I could. I surely didn’t get them all. But I got many of them.

Wait, what was that? Why do I have the feeling someone’s spying on me?

Yes, squirrels are part of the garden my dad says. I can’t remember seeing them often but apparently, they come more frequently now and claim the garden as theirs. They hiss at you when you walk past them in their garden. That’s probably while this one was watching me closely.

I also did some weeding in the rock garden. This rock garden was my very first garden project. And until today it’s “Anne’s rock garden” even though there have been a few years I hadn’t even seen it. My dad does a good job looking after it.

These ones I stole from our neighbor’s garden. Well, I didn’t steal the actual flowers. I just snapped them over the fence. And these ones below are creating a border between my parents’ and his garden. A lovely blooming fence.

This butterfly was across the “border”. It was beautiful to watch. And actually not that difficult to capture either. He sat down now and then for a good bite of his delicious lunch.

More pretty marigolds. The ones my dad would pick and dry and my uncle would create a salve out of. The marigold salve my grandma used daily.

More floral beauty:

This has been my version of nature’s bounty. It got a bit longer but my parents' garden is huge. In my eyes at least. And in between all the vegetables, fruits, and flowers, I couldn’t stop shooting especially when some wildlife came in as well.

I hope you enjoyed this piece. I thank Dennett for the inspiration and her great writing prompt. It’s the first of October today and she brought out the next one already. Let’s see what else there is to share this fall.

Talking about which — here are some pretty fall colors.

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