The morning after

I woke this morning with a headache. It was one I recognised—the Harvest Hangover. It’s a combination of fatigue and dehydration that comes after a day of picking and preserving vegetables.

Back in the years B.C. (Before Children), I used to lose 10 pounds during harvest season. I’d forget to eat and drink as I picked and processed mountains of tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, beans, etc. Ironic, eh? After a night of canning, I’d wake with a Harvest Hangover. I’d stumble to work grumpy and groggy, as though I’d been out carousing all night.

As I age, I’m more moderate in my preserving. Instead of weeks of late-night canning sessions, I do two or three a year. It helps that I can’t grow the quantity of tomatoes I used to during the hot summers in Pennsylvania, but I’ve also rationalised my preserving. Here, where winters are mild, I can grow cool-weather crops year round, so winters aren’t the fresh vegetable desert they are in a harsher climate. If I don’t have 50 quarts of tomatoes in the cupboard for winter, it doesn’t matter—we can eat something else instead. I preserve only what I know we’ll eat, so I’m not throwing away old canned goods every summer. I’ve learned to better manage my planting so that I’m not completely overwhelmed with any one crop (usually). And I allow myself to simply give away extra produce when I am overwhelmed.

Perhaps it’s a sign of aging that I don’t wake with Harvest Hangovers very often any more, but I like to think of it as a sign of wisdom. As they say, know your limits!