Summer garden produces plenty of miracles

Only God can make a tree, but I'm in charge of seeds and weeds! —Author unknown

"If you stare at a zucchini, I swear you can see it grow," says my husband, Grit, who, for the second year in a row, is finding great satisfaction in raising a garden (although he is coming home with too many large zucchinis!). This year he really looks the part with a straw gardening hat he got at a cowboy-themed charity dinner.

It was a hot summer out there weeding in the garden, but instead of seeming like a chore to him, off to the farm he went whenever he had some down time. I'm glad he began wearing that hat or he would be mighty burned up.

Last year he planted 230 tomato plants, so after he spent so much time harvesting and passing them out to neighbors, friends and family, I thought he would cut back. No chance. This year he planted 300. Some of them were unplanned, as a friend had some exotic tomato plants left over, and when he said he was throwing them away, Grit couldn't let that happen. Some people have sympathy for unwanted pets, others for an oversupply of tomato plants.

This year Grit also grew corn, planting a row of seeds several weeks apart to ensure at least a month of fresh corn eating. Seeing that corn grow was like watching a miracle. It formed beautiful green leaves and then tassels and finally the ears of corn. It didn't get as high as an elephant's eye, or perhaps it did. I never took a measurement, but it stood mighty tall in the field, especially when compared to the dried up corn seed it grew from.

The "People's Poet," Edgar A. Guest, wrote a little ditty he titled "A Package of Seeds."

Now seeds are just dimes to the man in the store

And the dimes are the things that he needs,

And I've been to buy them in seasons before

But have thought of them merely as seeds;

But it flashed through my mind as I took them this time,

"You purchased a miracle here for a dime."

Articles in the paper early in the season talked about bees being disoriented and unable to pollinate crops. When the prolific zucchini started coming, Grit knew his problem would not be a lack of bees. One day he heard a loud buzzing as he hoed out his weeds. When he finally worked his way to the corn, the tassels were teeming with bees, so of course he got out of there and left them to their business.