ANOTHER FINE MESS

During a pleasant chat with my aunt this afternoon I had an epiphany of sorts.  We were discussing the heat (of course), the air conditioner's attempting to keep it cool and the fact that I haven't been outside for more than a few minutes since Monday.  The epiphany was more of an "oh crap".  Who loves the heat more than Sahra? ;-)
The garden.  Uh oh.  Thoughts of way too much produce by the weekend floated thru my brain.  I forced Jam out the door with me and went in search of vegetables. 
I call it "The Iowa Amazon" aka my garden plot.  Even in a good year I hate weeding.  This spring I had great intentions and did all the good prep work to keep weeds to a minimum.  Those good intentions ended up being only that I'm afraid.  There are weeded areas of the garden, just not the whole garden and definately not the pea bed.  Jam took a look, gave me his "no way" face and trotted off to dig around in his version of nirvana...the burn pile.  Let's just say I will never be afraid of being homeless and penniless.  As long as Jam is around I am sure he can dumpster dive with the best of them.  He's had three years of practice digging around looking for that one teeny tiny piece of edible whatever that was not incinerated.  Now back to the rest of our story.  It was a mess, but the garden yielded another round of yummy veggies.  I think I may have picked the last of the peas, the vines nearly screamed at me "Hey--we are COOL weather crop you idiot--turn down the thermostat".  I think I may have been a bit overcome by the heat, because the garden and I had a lovely conversation while I navigated my way through picking here and there.  I got to pick my first big cucumber!  Yea!  Beets, the peas, another mess of pickling cucs, a zucchini and because I am a klutz, three onions of really good size, because I stepped on them.  The landlords are on a short vacation since fair is over and the school year looms ahead and I was told to use up some of their garden so it doesn't go to waste.  Lettuce and carrots are courtesy of them for tonight's salad. 
After the success this year I have decided to triple my herb production for next year.  The chamomile has taken off and I harvested more flowers for the dog's herbs.  I think I may have enough to harvest to do some herbal tea mix to add to the Christmas bounty.  It's worth that trip thru the Iowa Amazon and so far--no snakes!
Until next time...