Blackberries of DOOOOM

The blackberries have begun ripening. Please excuse me for a moment while I hold my head in my mulberry-stained hands in desperation.

Okay, I'm better now. The reason that the blackberries fill me with a sense of DOOOOM and desperation is that I feel like it's been non-stop harvesting and prepping since the first strawberries in June. Since then, I've dealt with the impressive number of garlic scapes, the never-ending mulberries (still coming, a month later!), large bunches of lettuce, blueberries, and raspberries. My paring knife and juice bag have been in constant use since June. But the blackberries ripening signal that we've only just begun, slacker, so steel yourself for the next two months.

To be fair, I brought all of this on myself. There was really no reason that I needed to gather mulberries every single day for a month. In fact, some words like "obsessive" and "crazy" might have been bandied about (and see if any of those people get some of my juice when they're dying of scurvy in February--not that I am bitter). No one forced me to go to the U-pick farm and harvest vast amounts of berries. Nor did anyone hold a gun to my head to make me prepare strawberry jam. I clearly have a compulsion to hoard, though I don't know why. It's not like I had a deprived childhood.

But at least I have some control over how much I get at the U-pick farm. At home, where the garden is growing and producing at a fantastic rate since we're actually getting rain this summer, I just have to take what comes. And what's coming are more ears of corn than a family of three could possibly consume, enough blackberries to make cobbler for the entire county, and absolutely INSANE numbers of tomatoes. And I have to use it all. I HAVE TO. I can't let all that free food go to waste. So there will be jelly-making and freezing with the blackberries, freezing and canning of corn (oh, how I hate to cut corn off the cob . . .), and canning of tomatoes until the end of time. I'm scared of the fecundity of the tomato plants. Strangely proud of them, but scared, as I know all those green tomatoes will turn red all at once and right in the middle of a heat wave. I can almost taste the sweat.

And there are, of course, other things. The potatoes, which thankfully only have to be harvested, dried, and stored in the cellar. The apple trees are loaded with apples, the pear trees are drooping with pears, there are cabbages, cucumbers for pickling, chard, collard greens, beets, lima beans, basil to be made into pesto, fennel, pumpkins for pies, Hubbard squash, carrots, celeriac, parsnips, and if we're lucky, artichokes. A lot of those are just harvest and eat, so I don't fear them like I do the corn and tomatoes.

Of course, despite all the whimpering, I do secretly love it. Otherwise, why would I bother? I could just go to the store and buy tomatoes in a can (bleeeech). But I don't, because I like to do this stuff. It's fun, it makes me feel competent and clever, and it tastes awfully good.

Just remind me of this in about a month when I'm peeling my 167th tomato. Thank you.