How Does My Garden Grow?

Wonderfully, for having started it way late! A wonderful friend of mine passed a bunch of heirloom seeds off to me because she had a possible buyer for her house and didn't want to start a garden only to have to leave it. Of course, as things usually go, the buyer fell through and she is now staying in her gardenless house, although I have given her first dibs on all of my extra harvest! I am way behind, having planted a month or more late, but I'm getting my first small harvests, and it's exciting! I am super-duper proud of this garden for two reasons. One is that I am giving my family wonderful, fresh, organic produce straight from the ground it is grown in. You can't get much better than that. The second reason is that I just decided to grab the bull by the horns and do it, and I have done it successfully and kept it up very well. Adam was reluctant and doubtful about it, but I think I have really kept up to my end of the bargain. I put a lot of work into it, and made sure he didn't have to weed-eat around it, and it is all mine. There have been a couple of times that he willingly volunteered some help when he was out there with me, but I have really worked hard at making this garden something to be proud of.


Here is Bella holding our first Costata zucchini squash!









Here is a baby Costata that will be ready in a day or two !








Our pea plants didn't do well enough to produce an entire meal at once, but Bella just loves to pick a few when we're in the garden and shell them to eat her 6 peas!





Our butternut squash and lemon squash are, of course, taking over the entire garden. I love going down there and seeing how much they have growing and having to redirect their course each time they try to consume my carrots or beans. And I love this picture, because Bella uses her feet (and always has since babyhood) as a gorilla does, so she is pointing at and moving the flower with her foot.



I just adore the color of a butternut squash flower. A good friend told me once she could have a garden just for the beautiful flowers, never mind the wonderful harvest of fruits and veggies you get! I have to agree.




And I love getting to teach the kids the difference between the male and femal flowers. A garden is a wonderful teaching tool, from learning about basic botony, to worms, compost, and bugs, the kids have a living field experiment that we get to explore every day.



I also love the difference between the whopping butternut flowers with their deep schoolbus yellow and these dainty, sunny lemon squash flowers.











The kids even get to learn all about pests, like the beautiful eggs here that will turn into nasty squash bugs. The problem is that I just love bugs, so it's always hard for me to have to get rid of the pesty ones. But the thought of losing my Costata plant to a few measly bugs gives me the strength to do what I must.











And speaking of colors, check out the blooms on my scarlet runner beans. I love that they so perfectly match the orange construction caution fence that keeps my garden from being deer/bunny/woodchuck food.









You simply cannot be in the garden looking at these flowers and feel grouchy!