My small Ballard garden has been very kind this year, delivering fresh greens, kale and collards to my table, providing snacks and meals of green beans, squash, some radishes, herbs and one beet.

I haven’t raided the potato bin yet.

Any failure to produce has been entirely my fault for being too busy to properly care for my garden. Oh, we had big ideas last winter, very big. Seeds were purchased, a place in the basement with lights prepared - but you know how life is.

Today, we shelled some gorgeous purple beans that by all rights should have been eaten long ago. I love that purple beans turn green when they cook, just so you know they really are green beans.

The fresh beans were blanched, dried and put into the freezer for soup-making. I picked out the largest beans to set aside for next years crop.

Of course, as soon as we finished shelling the beans I read up about how to save them for seed and soup. Wouldn’t you know it, we should have left them to dry in the pods and had to prepare them for the freezer instead. That’s what happens when you don’t read the directions first.

Here’s to summer harvests, barbecues and bike rides, soon to give way to brisk walks, raking leaves and toddy’s.

Rhonda lives in Ballard and is the Urban Crop Circle Project Leader for Sustainable Ballard. She and Jim are wishing they’d been better gardeners this year. Questions, Comments, Ideas? You can reach her at Rhonda@sustainableballard.org.