This is my first year having a garden (or at least, a garden that someone didn't 'accidentally' sabotage partway through ;) Looking at you @mwoodall!). This also means that it is my first year finding that I have a surplus of fresh fruits and vegetables. While our apple harvest this year was measly due to a drought that terrorized our region, our garden itself I am pretty pleased at.
I started with some basic items planted:
Tomatoes
Peppers
Carrots
Spinach
Lettuce
Cucumber
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Sweet Peas
Corn
Beans
Pumpkins
Potatoes
We also already had some asparagus growing in our yard from the previous owner of the property.
I don't know how many times I have trotted across the road to our neighbours house, with pails full of vegetables. Or just opened up my garden for people to come pick lettuce or peas. Now as the season comes to a close, and I go through the harvest, I find myself with not as much as one would expect from an abundant garden, but more left in my heart.
So far, we have only 3 jars of pickles, and enough for a couple more jars of tomato soup, then our potatoes and carrots already stored. Yet I would say it has been a successful season. Not from the amount I have saved my family in the terms of cost of food, or the amount that has been placed in the cold room to be able to pull from over the coming months, but that we have connected with those around us.
The world we live in (in the western society that I reside in), we are often taught to fear our neighbours. Keep an eye over your shoulder, watch your back, and worry about yourself only. If my mother raising me has taught me anything at all, she taught me this:
When you are more prosperous, or you find yourself well off, build longer tables not higher fences.
Welcome your neighbours, make them your friends. Watch out for each other, throughout the year. Not just during the bounties of harvest, yet as even when you may not have enough to share, because then resources get pooled together, and everyone can flourish and survive through the harder times.
Next years garden is planned already, and will be growing to accommodate the needs of those around us as well, or if needs are not as high, then we may be able to last through the winter with our canned items then.