It is the height of the summer produce season, and we are enjoying it despite our failure at gardening this year.

As luck would have it, we aren’t the only people in our neighborhood who regularly raise crops. Of course my brother Larry has a garden again this year, and he has been quick to share with us. He has provided green onions, beets, kohlrabi and more.

We also had some neighbors who started a nice little garden across the street. I say “had” because they recently moved away.

Being kind and generous people, they sent me a message after they left, urging us to help ourselves to any of the bounty that they had left behind.

So, we did.

They still have corn maturing and sunflowers blooming, but their tomato plants had exploded with fruit. So, we ended up with a large bag of Roma tomatoes, another bag of cherry tomatoes and several big, meaty yellow tomatoes that seem perfect for slicing, in addition to a number of ordinary round, red tomatoes to choose from.

And just because we couldn’t conquer the groundhog invaders in time to plant our usual garden doesn’t mean we gave up entirely. On our elevated front porch, we have probably six pepper plants and eight or 10 tomato plants, including two cherry varieties in hanging baskets. Those plants have begun bearing fruit as well, providing us with some goodies to mix into our salads.

Finally, a friend from work made sure I got my zucchini fix this year by sharing several with us.

No, it’s not the same as having a large, varied garden just outside my back door. And yes, I will be doing my best to revive that plot next year,

In the meantime, though, I am still going to enjoy the vegetables that have been so readily available. And I am going to appreciate the kindness of everyone who has been thoughtful enough to share with us, likely gaining the same feeling of satisfaction that sharing my harvest always brought to me.

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Speaking of our porch, we have made great strides toward finishing that very large project. It no longer looks like the skeleton with long, wooden ribs sticking up in the air. Instead, we have enclosed the exterior walls and covered them in shake shingles. On the interior walls, we have install bright white bead board for a nice clean look.

And, perhaps most importantly, we have painted and mostly install brand new bannister boards that are going to be perfect for sitting and displaying flowers on.

It really is staring to look almost like it did when I was a little girl — only maybe a little bit better.

I am really excited about the prospect of completely finishing this job. I believe it will make the entire house seem like it has new life in it.

And as we work on this project, we are coming across other, little things that we can do to make a big difference. On a recent day off, for instance, my husband Mike decided to remove the old, unused phone lines that were hanging all over the back side of the house. A couple a snips and a few screws later and the back of the house looked refreshed and uncluttered.

Everyone knows that home ownership can be hard, but it can also be incredibly satisfying when you strive to make your house a home. And we are working on that.