The Taste of Summer

 

Corn on the Cob, Peach Pie, Cherry Tomatoes, Sour Cherry Pie, Apricots, Green Beans… For me, these are the tastes of summer!

Eating these things reminds me of being a kid, growing up with a big garden and orchard. My grandparents had a farm, with animals, a vegetable garden, a field of corn and an orchard of fruit and nut trees. Growing food takes a lot of work, planning and energy. Harvesting it is both a reward and a lot of work! I remember the extremes of summer harvest.

The easiest harvest:

From as early as I can remember, I loved to wander in the garden and look for any ripe cherry tomatoes. I would pick them off the bush and pop them in my mouth. I loved how they tasted fresh of the plant, warm from the sun. I liked the classic red cherry tomatoes, but another favorite was the yellow pear-shaped ones. I often hid a small salt shaker in the rock wall near our garden. I would use it to season larger tomatoes that I would rinse off with the garden hose. Of course, I also helped myself to any lemon cucumbers that were ripe. Those tasted great with a sprinkle of salt!

The work of harvest:

When I think of summers when I was a kid, I think of the work of green beans; and how good they tasted. My mom planted rows of “pole beans” and a couple rows of “bush beans” too. We would pick green beans, filling bucket after bucket. Then the next day, there would be more!  We ate them of course, but we also preserved them for the rest of the year. My mom and I would sit outside in the shade snapping off the ends with our fingers after they were washed. Then we’d snap them into bite size pieces, filling huge bowls with them. Clean hot jars would be packed full of fresh green beans before boiling hot water was poured in. It was my job to measure the salt that was added to each jar before the seal and ring were put on the jar. My mom would lower the jars into the canner and set the timer. I remember the rows of jars on the kitchen counter. As they cooled the seals made a popping sound. We canned green beans multiple times every summer. I remember sometimes it was so hot and there would be enough to do 2 canners full at the same time. So, my dad set up a propane camp stove on the deck and we canned out there!

My mom and I also helped my grandma can vegetables. My grandparents had a huge field of corn each summer, so we canned corn! That too was a multi-step process because of having to clean the corn and cut it off the cob. Grandma also canned tomatoes, little potatoes, “stew veggies” which was tomato and onion and sometimes celery.

We canned fruit too. My mom and I canned the apricots, pears and sour cherries from the trees in our orchard. We had a few apples trees too. This meant we had fresh apple pie, but also that we made applesauce and canned that too. We sometimes would buy fruit in the summer to can. I know one year my aunt and grandma on my mom’s side of the family bought several boxes of ripe peaches from a local orchard. We worked as a family to wash, boil, peel and halve them to can. We had fresh peach pie and froze some for pies to bake later in the year. Opening a jar of peaches in the winter to add to oatmeal or cereal, to have over vanilla ice cream or just to eat for a snack was such a treat. The taste of peaches brought back the memories of summer warmth.

The joy of harvest:

Growing food is a lot of work, and I only know the work of a family garden. Farmers certainly invest significantly more time and energy into producing the food we all enjoy. I remember when I was a kid my dad’s parents, who had the farm and big garden, would share and trade so much of their harvest. They gave a lot of food away and in return, friends and neighbors gave them food as well. I remember walking with either my grandpa or grandma with baskets of fruit and vegetables to a neighbor’s house. On Sundays they often took crates of produce to give away at church.

One of the smaller buildings on my grandparent’s farm was a storage place for food. On one side there were big bins with chicken and rabbit food. My grandpa stored all kinds of things in there needed for caring for the animals they raised. The other side of the structure was covered in wood shelves where grandma would store her canned goods. She canned so much and it lasted throughout the year. I remember that by springtime, the shelves would be noticeably emptier. When she started to can in the summer, the remaining jars were moved up to the front and the new ones were placed in the back.

At my house, we stored our canned goods under the house. There wasn’t a basement, but a crawl space that was big enough to stand up in. My dad built shelves in there. On one side of the entrance he stored his parts for repairing appliances. On the other side was where my mom and I put all the jars of fruits and vegetables that we canned. It was always cool under there and smelled like dirt. I used to love going in there as a kid. My cousins and I would sit in there and eat popsicles on super-hot days.

I’m grateful for the experience I had growing up of gardens and preserving food. I learned a lot by raising animals for meat and keeping chickens to produce eggs as well. I took this for granted as a child. But now, that my kids are teenagers and have not had that same experience, I value it even more. I have lived and raised my kids in the city, where there is very little space for a garden. I’ve planted vegetables in the flower beds bordering my lawn. In one house we rented, I put a plastic baby pool on the concrete patio and turned it into a little garden because it received full sun all day. That was a favorite garden of mine; it thrived and made me so happy! 

This year the extent of my “harvest” is the yield of one cherry tomato plant planted in a barrel and placed in the one corner of my yard that gets enough sun throughout the day for it to thrive. It is so small; only one tomato and one pepper plant. But I still get the joy of picking a tomato fresh off the plant and eating it immediately. A friend of mine has a peach tree and gave me bag of peaches. I made pie! Oh, the taste of summer! It made me remember the work of summer and the joy of family working together.