Farewell, summer garden!

Every spring for the last 10 years, we have planted a vegetable garden. Some years are more successful than others, and different plants yield different results each year. The end of the summer, when the garden stops producing, is always a reflective time for me: it heralds the shorter days, the coming of cold nights, and I brace myself to make it through the winter until the weather is warm again next spring to start the garden.

This year, I grew bitter melon (Paavakkai/ karela/ bitter gourd) for the first time. My grandmother used to grow them along the back chicken wire fence at our home in Malaysia and it was effortless to get them to yield fruit. Here in North Carolina, the results were mixed - beautiful healthy plants, lots of yellow flowers, but the fruits were late to form. When they did form, they were smaller than expected, but still have that lovely bitter flavor. Yes, it is an acquired taste!

Garden winners this year: Spring lettuce, Bitter melon, cucumbers, cayenne peppers, okra, bush beans, and basil.

Garden losers: zucchini, bell peppers, yellow squash, and for the first time ever, our tomatoes were losers, because of the $#@*! tobacco hornworm.

I'm enjoying the last weeks of summer, when our garden puts forth its supreme, final effort to yield farewell gifts to us from Mother Earth.

Happy Fall, Y'all!