My Garden

One of my passions is gardening.  It gives me absolute pleasure to work in the dirt and I'm over the moon if I find a big juicy worm or toad who find my garden to be a suitable home.

When we first moved to the country, we joined a Community Supported Agriculture group.  It was fabulous!  Every week we brought home a variety of seasonal fruit, vegetables and herbs from the local farm.  Belonging to a CSA really made us try new veggies and forced us to eat them more.  I found, however, that as our family grew it was hard for me to do something with the three beets in our box or even the four ears of corn.  After two years of belonging to the CSA, I decided to take that money and put it into a garden of our own.

Ever since I was a kid, I have dreamt of owning a garden.  Most little girls dream of becoming a princess, living in a castle and living happily ever after.  If I could live in my garden, I would be happy!  Our neighbors had a fabulous garden when I was little.  I remember the dad out there tilling and planting and watched as they harvested later in the summer.  Of course, there was always too much zucchini and far too many tomatoes and I felt so blessed when they shared with us.

Three summers ago I got to work...er, rather I got Steve to work.  We borrowed a tiller from our friends and he spent an eternity out there trying to dig up our rocks and clay into a palatable garden for our veggies and fruit.  The kids and I tried the best we could to get the grass and rocks out as he tilled.  It was a huge undertaking and I know he already dreaded doing it again the next year.

Our first year of gardening was a success.  We planted the requisite number of tomatoes and squash, along with some other veggies and fruit.  To be honest, our first summer wasn't a stellar success.  There were lots of weeds and grass, rocks and clay.  I loved getting out there but the twins were small and I couldn't pay much attention to the garden.

The next year was met with high enthusiasm.  I planted seeds in March and Steve tilled in May.  Tilling was easier than the previous year, due in part to added compost from our compost pile and hay laid the previous fall.  The kids were more enthusiastic about helping and it was a successful season.

However, this year has been the best by far!  Tilling took about ten minutes and we barely found any rocks at all.  It's only July and I only harvested my first tomato yesterday, but it's just a fabulous season due in part to Mother Nature's blessing us with a lot of rain in the spring and periodic rain throughout the summer.  I found an interesting article early this spring about ways to get your kids involved in the garden.  It laid out a plan which looked similar to my garden already so I decided to try it.  Basically it uses plants which catch kids eyes like pole beans on teepee trellises and plants named "PacMan Broccoli".  Interesting plants that catch their eye like kohlrabi (I know, what's that?), ferny asparagus and big sunflowers.

My tomatoes are falling over from the weight, my corn is far taller than me as opposed to the saying "knee high by the 4th of July", my strawberries are producing some gorgeous red berries I would love to make into a pie if only a certain little girl would stop going in there to eat them all!

In my beloved garden are blueberries, raspberries, three varieties of tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, jalapeno peppers, a cabbage (from a contest Trent is involved in), corn, watermelon, romaine lettuce, strawberries,

cantaloupe (look at those awesome orbs forming - yummy!),

potatoes which are so much fun to harvest (we've already harvested the new potatoes and look forward to the fall for the final big harvest), see that one poking from the ground?

pole beans given to me by fellow twin mom and gardening extraordinaire Jenn (who I love to get ideas from and talk "garden"),

aforementioned PacMan Broccoli, which, by the way, the name does not get the kids to want to eat it any more than before

the ferny asparagus which was an impulse buy from the gardening store, we have to wait three years for harvest but it's such an interesting little plant I look forward to watching it mature over the years,

and kohlrabi.

 So what is kohlrabi?  Apparently it is a turnip-like vegetable that grows above ground.  It was listed as something the kids would like to watch because of it's cool purple and green colors.  It has intrigued both kids and adults!  Harvesting was another issue...

PULL!!!

I said PULL!!!

Come on!  PULL!!!

After some help from Mom, we were finally able to get it out!

Lance's enthusiasm about the kohlrabi was quickly dissipated as soon as it was put on his plate.  We cooked the leaves that night and are saving the turnip-like veggie for another night.  The leaves were spiny and thick, and very hard to eat.  It's understandable why it's not a more popular vegetable!