Ever since the September 11th terrorist attacks, a number of people, including myself, have thought about becoming more self-reliant in the event of an attack that might interrupt basic services like gas, electricity, food, water, and beer.

This need became all the more apparent when, one year ago this month, as we sat around thinking, "Why did this terrible thing happen?" our president explained the motivation for the attacks with perfect clarity. "They hate our freedoms."

"Whuh?" we all said. It sounded like the scene from the movie The Jerk, where Steve Martin is a gas station attendant and the subject of a sudden and unprovoked sniper attack. As the bullets puncture the oil cans behind him, Martin cries, "He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!"

At the end of Bush's speech, I turned to my girlfriend and said, "We better start growing our own food."

But that was at the end of the growing season, and by the time planting time rolled around this year we all felt much safer, because our armed forces had bombed the snot out of Afghanistan, ensuring peace and security for us all. I planted basil to celebrate. Love that pesto.

Now as I listen to news about a possible unilateral invasion of Iraq, I wonder whether we shouldn't have grown something more filling. All this Texas diplomacy could stir up some Alamo size trouble, buckaroos. We may have to stock up on some grub.

And this is a good time to do it, because this is the time of year that many home gardeners realize that perhaps their shovels were bigger than their mouths. It's harvest time, and just like old Soviet Russia, the problem becomes not one of production, but distribution.

For the next few weeks, we'll start seeing roving packs of overly successful gardeners, going from door to door or cubicle to cubicle to give others the opportunity to share in the spoils of the land. Their land.

It's amazing what can grow up from that little dirt square where the old garage used to be. You must take some, they say, it was grown in soil kept safe for fifty years by a four inch concrete slab. This dirt is a stranger to toxic spills and dirty, modern rain. Why, it may even be organic!

Home grown tomatoes are so much better than the lacrosse balls you buy in the store that they should really have a different name. There's a great old Guy Clark song about them that goes, "There's only two things that money can't buy, and that's true love and home grown tomatoes."

I think he wrote that song during the month of July, because by September, the vine that was grudgingly giving up a couple tomatoes a week is now cranking them out faster than they can be picked. Suddenly, the treasures nobody would give up for any amount are being given away in a desperate attempt to make sure they don't go to waste. And secretly, secretly, people are getting tired of them. Blasphemy!

I once traveled to the rural Midwest during this time of year, where land is cheaper, gardens are bigger, and giveaways are more aggressive. Twice I saw gas stations with signs reading "Free home grown tomatoes with every fill-up!" Later in the season, any purchase at all, or even a question about directions, got you an even riper and bigger bag full. In the end, drivers pausing at the corner stop sign in their pickups would be momentarily distracted by a blur of movement in the mirror, later to find a dripping wet box (with a note: "READY FOR CANNING!") in the bed of the truck.

Then there's the zucchini, a plant that's fun to grow because it's so darn eager to please. It grows fast and big, but it's hard to get excited about eating zucchini every day, which is what you have to do to keep up. It's sad to overhear people trying to give them away. ("Zucchini bread is so moist!" "Fabulous with ranch dressing!" "I'll just put you down for 25.") They've got to get rid of them, because if you don't keep up on the harvesting, they just keep growing and growing, until they block the sidewalk and develop a primitive brain.

Which brings us back to foreign policy, so much of which is dictated by who are the haves and who are the have nots. It's easy to think you can take charge of the world when you have the biggest zucchini. But it's not right.