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| Marigold seeds - at least 3 cups! |
The garden this year has been a little different... I had so much more space, and yet with the weather, pests and drought - not much more has grown. In fact, after planting 9 or so summer squash plant, both zucchini and scalloped squash, I only had on average 2 or 3 squash per plant. Not many considering Luke's love of squash.
With the exception of cherry tomatoes, which did so well, the tomatoes have also been slow to produce - and it seems less this year. In fact, I finally took out one tomato plant mid September as it had had zero fruit and no blossoms! It was tall and green, but nothing! I have finally been able to process some juice and sauce, but I am so glad I had so much last year!
I wanted to can enough green beans for the year... but even though I planted SO MANY BEAN PLANTS, it has been a couple of cups here and a couple of cups there. I ripped out the bush beans last week as they were done. This week, the pole beans are finally producing. I was able to do six pints yesterday.
All in all, I have had to learn to appreciate the smaller quantities I have been able to harvest. Along the way, I have also learned to harvest things I may not have bothered with in the past. I have learned to preserve herbs in new ways and begun to collect a few seeds too.
All of these smaller amounts have added up to quite the abundance when all is said and done. As you could see from my marigold seeds, a small bowl of dead blossoms contained quite the large amount of seed.
What a great reminder to me to look for the myriad of small blessings surrounding me each day! With all of these, I am abundantly blessed!
