Sunday

Mini-Harvest on an Sunday Afternoon in August

There is an especially gratifying quality to walking into your backyard and picking from a variety of homegrown vegetables for the evening dinner. Such was the case this afternoon after I finished working in the yard.

The cooler summer meant that some of my garden vegetables were a few days late this year, but we can't hurry nature along. That is, this is true those of us who eschew dumping gallons of chemicals into our gardens and lawns. I find that lawn clippings work quite well as weed-reducing mulch, and it has been years since I actually bagged up yard waste.

The photographed fruits of my labors are actually much smaller than today's harvest, as I bagged up about ten pounds of tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers for my Lebanese neighbors across the street. They have a large family, and their tomatoes are just starting to ripen.

Besides, it is Ramadan now, and they will repay my vegetable gifts with tabouli, fatoosh, hummus, or whatever they cooked up for the evening feast after the fast. Call it symbiosis, or neighborliness, or whatever you want, but the bottom line is simply that I love Ramadan.

Oh, and I did not grow those ears of corn in the photo. I no longer waste my time growing pathetically small homegrown corn when I can get something like six ears of corn for a dollar at the fruit market.