There's always next year

I was out in the garden weeding last night. Some of the weeds were way tall, especially in those corners of the garden that I don't pay much attention to. I've given up weeding in the pumpkins. They've spread over everything and I can no longer walk through them. A few clumps of foxtail here and there shouldn't bother them. The pumpkins have invaded the farmer's field behind us and I hope that I can harvest the pumpkins growing there and pull down the vines before he harvests this fall. Not sure how he'd feel about the pumpkin encroachment. There are more Cinderella pumpkins every time I turn around, and the Jack Be Littles are zooming everywhere. I've only seen one really good Musquee de Provence, the other ones were pollinated with Long Island Cheese pollen and didn't form true to type. I think I'll only end up with a few Long Island Cheese also. The young rind is tender and the cucumber beetles must think it tasty. I'm sick of tomatoes. The tomato stand was fun this year and I made over $30, so I paid for most of the plants and seeds that went in the garden. But now its speed ripening time and I can't keep up. I made tomato preserves on Sunday (actually tastes more like BBQ sauce) and used 5 pounds, not even making a dent in the current backlog.

So as I'm standing there in the rapidly advancing twilight and surveying the overgrown wildness that was (is) my garden and I think, Well there's always next year. And that made me sad. How did it get to be the middle of August so fast? It was only the other day that I was pouring through heirloom seed catalogs, and making lists, and envisioning this Martha Stewart-esque, neatly groomed, incredible garden, and here I am at the tail-end of summer, staring at a riot of weeds, and rotting zucchini the size of volkswagens, and yellow-legs vaulting from tomato cage to tomato cage, and already making grand plans for next year.