GARDEN LOVE
What I’m Thankful For Today
That indescribable taste of a fresh-picked blueberry, and more…
I am thankful for blueberries.
Today I learned that July was designated “National Blueberry Month” by the USDA in 1974. So I am celebrating this by spending back-breaking hours hand-picking these delicious fat juicy pearls from the two bushes in my garden that provide for a year’s supply of drool-inducing blueberry pancakes, waffles, and muffins. And, of course, pies!
Native to America, blueberries have been around for thousands of years, originally collected and enjoyed by the First Peoples. Today, the US is the largest producer of blueberries in the world. Washington State, famous for its blueberries, produces more than 120 million pounds of them annually.
I think I picked about a million pounds today alone.
I am thankful for this year’s bountiful blueberry harvest.
Not every farm has been so fortunate this season. The Pacific Northwest, from Oregon up into British Columbia, was hit with a devastating excessive heat wave this June, roasting many berries just as they were ripening. We were extremely lucky. This time.
I am thankful for having a farm in a “protected” microclimate.
Our farm is on a point of land sticking out towards the Strait of Juan de Fuca, bounded on one side by the Puget Sound and on the other by Hood Canal. Early explorers, frustrated by foul winds and nasty weather, named this place “Point No Point” and erected a lighthouse there to warn sailors to stay away.
We are surrounded by those cooling waters and sea breezes that moderate our local climate. But we also slog through a lot of foggy mornings, gale force winds, and misty, drizzly rain for dreary months on end.
But last week when extreme temps surpassed 100ºF in nearby Seattle, we were enjoying a perfectly fruit-friendly 80º. If I lived anywhere else around this area, my blueberries would have been fried and baked.
I am thankful for rabbit-proof fencing.
This year, for the first time ever, I had to plant beans multiple times because something would eat the tender shoots as soon as they sprouted.
My garden is fenced to keep the deer out, but this year rabbit populations have exploded locally (the weather is getting warmer, folks) and I discovered a pair of sweet little bunnies spending nights in the pea patch and under the pumpkin vines. And eating all the bean shoots.
All other work on the farm ceased immediately to deal with this crisis, and the fence was soon reinforced to Fort Knox levels. No more bunnies. Beans are growing!
I am thankful for volunteers in the garden.
I love poppies, nasturtiums, borage, calendula, as well as whatever veggies grow out of my compost piles, because they are effortless, they want to be here, and they work hard to produce despite never getting watered or fertilized.
It’s almost as if they’re showing off to impress all the other garden plants, whose demands for water and feeding are incessant.
So I let them grow wild, fully express themselves, and give nectar to the bees and hummingbirds.
Life in the garden is good.
I am thankful for all you readers out there! For more garden love, see below. I just can’t stop writing about this. :D