As summer wanes, and the expansive days of summer fade before our eyes, I am beginning to feel that same briefness in the garden. While we still have a great deal coming out of our garden, and the tomatoes are finally beginning to come along, I feel a pull towards the space inside our home. At this time of year, my body grows weary from all the hours spent out in the garden. And while I still adore being in this space, I look forward to the days of nestling in with a cup of coffee, good book and some crocheting. I often think this is why God gifted us with the seasons. They allow us time to recharge our minds and bodies before venturing out again.
This past week in the garden has been quite bountiful. Our second round of strawberries are still coming in the door, along with our long-awaited raspberry crop. The tomatoes are starting to ripen and we have been eating them fresh off the vine, most of them never even making it over the threshold. The lemon verbena liqueur that I mentioned a couple weeks back, is now completed and I look forward to the cocktails and baked goods we can make with this citrusy elixir. More herbs are being dried, and beans frozen. But perhaps our greatest delight of the week has been our apples. As I shared before, the Japanese beetles have devoured the leaves of our apple trees. We reached a point this week that there were more dead leaves than living and I feared if we didn’t pick our apples now we may lose them. So pick we did. And pie we made. It was a great week in the garden.