May Does Away with the Garden

With mixed joy and sadness, I pulled up our vegetable garden today. The now skinny tomato bushes were struggling to hold on to the last few red bursts of fruit and the onions were splitting at their seams. The peppers were so long, they were standing on their tippy-toes while tethered to their stems. And although pretty, the yellow flowers sprouting from the broccoli only made great places for snails to nest like earring posts.

For now, all that's left growing are fragrant white flowers on the lemon tree soon to be huge yellow orbs. I couldn't help but to plant a few pumpkin and squash seeds today, just to have something to watch sprout over the summer. And, of course, the roses are doing a fine job of keeping the cacophony of colors going as long as the rain keeps coming. Here's a little silly "thank you" ditty I wrote to commemorate the past nine months of the garden fresh food we've enjoyed.

Thank you broccoli, thank you peas,

ugly tomatoes - fill my plate, please!

Thank you onions, peppers, too.

When I slice your skins, I cry boo-hoo!

Squirrels say thank you to the corn.

Where once there were ears they're now all shorn.

Thank you green beans sleek and long.

We ate our fill 'til your rows were gone.

Thank you herbs, oh basil tall.

Mint, dill and chives, I ate you raw.

Rosemary, sage and parsley,

You garnished our platters so nicely.

On this, the last day of May,

I pulled out deep roots and turned the clay.

No more rows of sprouting green,

just pumpkin seeds for next Halloween.