I recently saw a meme that proclaimed, “Growing your own tomatoes really is the best way to devote three months of your life to saving $2.17.” This afternoon when I went out to pick a few of my ripe ones, I was so overwhelmed with my summer bounty that I untucked my T-shirt and used the front to carry in as much as I could: a retail value of at least three bucks.

My parents always had a garden in their yard, and for many years they also planted an even bigger one at their friend’s place on the edge of Chippewa Falls. The only water source was an ancient spigot; I was the girl who carried load after load in my sprinkling can. Could we really have done everything by hand? I think so. Did it rain more often then? Maybe so. We grew cucumbers, beans, kohlrabi, peas, pumpkins, and corn. So much corn.

As an adult, I prefer to buy my veggies from the produce department. On Lake Hallie, my husband has a name for anything we try to grow in our yard: Critter Food. Bruce and I watched in disbelief as bunnies devoured our dappled willow, deer chowed down our hostas, and muskrats nibbled our tiger lilies. Besides porch pots of basil, cilantro, and mint, we’ve grown nothing edible since we moved here in 2010. Until this summer.

In June, my garden-obsessed brother gifted me a tomato plant he sprouted in his hand-built greenhouse. I imagine his thick fingers poking a delicate seed into an egg carton filled with his own mixture of dirt and compost, then checking his 400 plants for sprouts all spring. Who puts in that many tomatoes?! A guy like David, who pours himself into gardening as a form of meditation and relaxation – an antidote to his stressful job. He knows as well as anyone, a garden yields not just bounty but other rewards.

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Any garden offers a concrete example of how the past and future collide.

patti see

author

This summer I tend to one tomato plant and think I’m a botanical goddess. After all, it produced over 150 tomatoes. Bruce says, “Stop feeding it.” I can’t help myself. I want to see what I could do with Miracle Grow. My tomatoes popped on the vine and then just kept growing. I took a photo for my brother, and my quick text “your tomato plant” autocorrected as “tomorrow plant.” Perfect. Last season’s seeds became this season’s harvest, and many of David’s will certainly become tomorrow’s plants when he begins this cycle next winter. Any garden offers a concrete example of how the past and future collide.

When I was a kid, late summer suppers meant heaps of corn on the cob served in a blue roaster big enough for a 20-pound turkey. There were eight of us corn-loving kids. The entire meal was just corn and a mixing bowl of sliced cucumbers swimming in mayonnaise and vinegar dressing. We couldn’t wait for that many people to roll corn in butter so Mom set out two sticks, one on each side of the table, while we passed around one greasy saltshaker.

Dad’s corn-eating technique was like a typewriter but rather than “tap, tap, tap,” it was “bite, bite, bite, swallow.” Did he chew? It was a competition to see who could eat the most. Dad downed six cobs. My sister Geralynn wasn’t far behind.

Mom once pointed out that farmers feed corn to sows. “You ever see a skinny pig?” she asked. Point taken. We chomped away.

The weight of years reminds me how every meal around my parent’s dining table began with the prayer, “Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty...”

Those summertime suppers: what a priceless bounty it was.