Okay, this isn’t a huge harvest, and as my father liked to say–it’s  good thing we’re not living off our garden–but this is one of the real joys of summer. I’ve got my first tomato, a bunch of pole beans, and three very crisp cucumbers.

Here’s a poem by Probir Gupta about this wonderful vegetable with a summer lesson for all of us about growth. It’s not easy:

The Cucumber Leaves

The  merciless  sun
The cucumber  leaves   all   scorched  
Still  you  need  the  torch