Making Our Gardens Grow...

My friend Emmaly came over when I was about a besquillion months pregnant and helped me dig a garden. She got me pretty stoked about getting a garden started, and I somehow got Steven pretty stoked in turn. The product was two cute little garden plots with veggies galore. We planted tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, broccoli, eggplant, squash, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, herbs, blackberries, blueberries, corn and even peanuts!

Steven has really taken over the gardening thing---what with me being a little more than occupied trying to keep the 2 Tasmanian devils from smothering the Jakester. It’s actually become a bit of stress reliever for him. Usually the first thing he does when he comes home is change into his Farmer Joe clothes and go work outside until dinner’s ready.

All of his hard work has really paid off. First, it looked like this:
And then like this:

And now it looks like this:


We’ve already been able to harvest quite a few green beans and a bell pepper or two. Our tomato plants are a bit out of control, but they’re on their way. The squash and cucumbers have completely taken over the garden behind the shed, and we’re afraid they might actually start to breed and then we’ll have to eat squcumbers. The corn unfortunately got aphids and the birds have eaten all the blackberries, but other than that, it’s been a highly successful experience. One of the highlights of our day is going out back to inspect the garden’s progress. We’ve learned a lot about what to grow and what not to grow, and so hopefully next year will be even more fruitful.


And believe it or not (brace yourself), I’ve never been so excited to eat vegetables in my life. I pluck green beans off the vine and eat them like candy. I’m crossing my fingers that this whole gardening thing will be the key to teaching our kids to have a lifelong love affair with fruits and veggies.