Last Harvest

I will probably still be plucking a few more cayenne peppers, cherry tomatoes, and perhaps even one. last. eggplant. But this photo, taken last Sunday, probably represents the last harvest, the last time I start picking and end up filling my t-shirt with quite so many fruits of the summer season.

The end of the season might seem like a strange time to get started on a blog that will focus so much on gardening. But I've always believed I had, if not a black thumb, then certainly not one that I could reasonably classify as green. This year I made a lot of mistakes. I planted things that never germinated. I killed an entire seedling tray of beautiful babies by leaving them in the sun with the cover on. I went on vacation with nobody lined up to water my plants for 10 days in the middle of June. And yet, I succeeded! I grew some of my own food. I shared meals with friends at which the only things we didn't grow ourselves were salt and rice. That's a pretty great feeling.