Gardening

I will be the first to admit that I do not have my grandmother's green thumb. I swear that woman could grow anything. :) I have memories of a screened-in porch covered in potted plants and a backyard brimming with flowers and grapes and peaches and a few veggies here and there. Personally, I have a couple of cactus plants that have survived on the window sill, thankful for their natural hardiness as they watch roses come and go (What IS it with spider mites, anyway?? WHY can't I get rid of those things, ever??), a fern that is clinging to life, several really cute mini plants that seem to be fairly happy, a Bonsai tree that I regularly forget to water, and some bamboo whose days are numbered, I'm certain of it. The front flower bed is in decent shape, I think, although it probably needs weeding. I love flowers, and I like growing things. I'm just honestly not all that great at it. I can live with that (even if the poor plants don't always :P).

BUT....this year....the kids and I have a crowning achievement. We have, through a decent amount of hard work and the very benevolence of God, managed to grow an actual garden. A real one. One that's producing food. That we can eat. Granny would be proud. :)

We started with this:

See that big green space behind Crawdad? That's what we started with. Not owning any sort of farming equipment, the first thing we did was section off a patch and dig it out by hand. That, by the way, was a LOT of work. :) (Crawdad is present and working, btw. He's just usually the one doing the camera work. :))

Pepper peeking in to see what all the fuss was about. :P

We had help from our favorite Ta. :) This pic was way overexposed, but I did my best to fix it because I really like how it shows the contrast between what we started with and what we accomplished.

After all that digging, came the planting. :)

Taz was fascinated by the fact that these kernels would grow into actual corn plants.

We also planted some corn starts.

Eventually, we dug, weeded, seeded, and started this lovely garden plot. We had corn, broccoli, peas, various lettuces, lemon cucumbers, strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, cantelope, garlic, squash, and carrots.

And then, a wonderful friend showed a picture of our garden to her husband. He offered to bring his tractor over and expand it a bit for us. He was on a time crunch, so he didn't get as much done as he wanted, but he managed to rip up the weeds in an area twice the size of our already dug plot in about 45 minutes. (It took us 3 weeks to dig the section by hand. Cub said he now felt obsolete. :P) Once done, the area needed to be raked (with the much appreciated assistance of a teenage friend). 

This digging stuff is thirsty work. :)

OK, so maybe not everybody was working. :P

After the prep work, we had produced a nice sized area. 

We planted wheat, pumpkins, and more squash in the new space. (More squash...what exactly was I thinking?? I love squash, I do, but 20 squash plants? Was I planning on feeding a small squash-loving village somewhere? Good grief. )

And then things started to grow. :)

And then things really started to grow!

Wheat! In theory, we'll grind it into flour. Who knows how that will work practically, but it will sure be educational to try! :)

Pumpkins, in abundance.

Weirdest looking squash I've ever seen. :P

See, now THAT'S a squash. :P

Corn!

Taz planted tomatoes, which cracks me up. Taz hates tomatoes. :P

Some things didn't grow...

Sad peas. :(

And some things grew faster than I was anticipating....

Did you know that broccoli florets turn into flowers? I'll admit that I didn't. Pretty cool, though. And, as a bonus, the flowers still taste like broccoli. :P

Our one surviving carrot. Taz is patting it. Good carrot. :)

Overall, it's leafy and green and gorgeous, and it makes me smile. (Never mind the giant weeds in the background. We live in the country. Besides, there's always next summer to tackle those. :))

 Garden 2014: Success! :)