Harvest!

Ok, so maybe the title is a bit exaggerated!  I'll explain.  I have a morning routine of checking on and watering my front beds and my vegetable garden in the back.  I particularly love doing it right now because its still a bit chilly (at least for this Southern girl) at 7:00 am in the shade.  To get to my garden I have to walk through about a 1/4 acre of shade and then get the pleasure of being kissed by the morning sun when I make it to the garden.  We chose a spot in the yard for the garden that gets plenty of sun!  Presently, its a nice little routine but soon enough it will be hot and humid at 7 am, so I'll enjoy this weather while it last.  In the evening, I have a similar routine: check on vegetables, check on fig tree, check on pear tree, and check on blackberry bush.

While, there isn't much change each day I enjoy seeing the process of growth for the different fruits and vegetables.  The pear tree has budding pears that are only about an inch long and half an inch wide.  Because we haven't had a good rainfall in over a month, they have remained that size for a while.  The fig tree's leaves are big and beautiful but figs haven't started growing yet.  The blackberry bush on the other hand, started producing red berries last week so I have anxiously been awaiting the change from red to black each day.  Our bush was actually already here when we purchased our home.  At that time, it was a small little bush that wasn't terribly noticeable.  In the two and a half years that we have lived her, the bush (left to its own devices) exploded in size.  It is now about twelve to fourteen feet long and at its thickest point about eight foot wide.  Technically, its not a bush but individual stalks that easily propagate without any assistance (or approval) from this homeowner.  The size is a bit of a problem that I am trying to resolve, not so much because of the amount of space it takes up (we have a whole acre of property) but its impossible to access the entire bush and harvest it.

All of these details aside, I did my evening ritual of observations, and to my delight 5 whole blackberries were ready for the pickin'.  Yup, just five in what will eventually be hundreds by the end of the season.  I was a little surprised because I guessed a few would be ready this weekend at the earliest.  I ate a couple right off of the stalk and saved the others for my husband.  Harvesting, even if only a few blackberries, is especially wonderful when its just a gift from Mother Nature and I didn't have to invest any time or energy into producing this delicious treat!