I have learned to hold all things loosely, so God will not have to pry them out of my hands. --Corrie ten Boom

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I Knew I Loved You...


Monday, August 6, 2007

"How does your garden grow?"

Well, last year we planted a "patch" for a garden. A few tomatoes, a few cucumbers, zucchinis & a strawberry patch. Thomas found that gardening was a passion for him & I found out that I enjoyed it too. So, this year we decided to jump in with both feet & actually plant a garden. Not being farmers or on a farm we really didn't have the tools that we needed to accomplish this new hobby short or long term. So, to get started until we knew if this would be a one shot kind of thing for us or an annual household tradition we decided to rent the expensive tools & purchase the less expensive ones that we knew we could always use for just general yard maintenance. We hired a man to actually use a tractor to till a large spot & later on rented a small tiller for cultivating. We purchased shovels & hoes, a garden "weasel" & some other gadgets that we thought we would need. Well, we found out that we have green thumbs. Our little project took off in a big way! Even the items that we planted by seed that we weren't sure if they would come up took off & some even took over! We planted peppers of all kinds, tomatoes of several varieties, green beans, cucumbers, several kinds of lettuce, cabbage, carrots, sweet, regular & new potatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon, a pumpkin patch, squash, zucchini, radishes, turnips, onions & herbs of all kinds that included Lavender, Spearmint, Basil, Cilantro, Sage, Thyme etc. We also planted a large row of Sunflowers that we keep calling our "Jack & The Beanstalk" attempt! They are so tall that they seem to go right on up to the sky. They finally seem to have stopped growing & are blooming & are so beautiful. My most recent picture only shows a couple in bloom, but now almost the entire row is flowered! We have been harvesting many yummy items from our garden, more than we can eat. So, all of our neighbors & friends have been getting their share as well. We didn't know that we weren't suppose to plant the pumpkins until later, so here we are in August with about twelve pumpkins about ready to pick! Oh well.........we wanted to get good at growing those so Mia can have a pumpkin patch of her own! It only took one try for us too get good at the whole pumpkin patch thing as we planted the pumpkins from seed & my goodness did they take off! (they took over the garden!) Our garden has been a learning experience for sure & at times a lot of work, but has been so enjoyable & rewarding. We know now that this will for sure be an annual thing for our household! We have been cooking & baking with a lot of our harvest & are even thinking about trying our hand at canning. Can you imagine?


2 comments:

Pam said...

Wow, sounds like quite the garden. I didn't realize you had that much land. Good for you!

miget said...

wow i can't believe you are doing all of that gardening good luck with it