Garden Times

I can feel it, garden season is coming to a close for me. My energy for it is slowly dissipating. I love the idea of a fall garden, but the reality is that by the middle of August I'm not interested enough in it to pull it off. 

Our new garden has kept me busy this summer. I learned a lot, some of things less painfully than others. 

Corn - we need to learn when to pick it, letting it go too long makes it hard to enjoy. 

 Green beans - the plants produced beans longer than I needed or wanted them to - both a blessing and a curse.

 Cucumbers - They grow in all sizes! And for some reason, I wasn't in the mood to deal with them - I gave lots away to people and chickens.

 Zinnias - I love having them as a bright spot in my garden. The rest of the garden can be a mess, but the zinnias are always cheerful.

 Watermelon - such a fun plant to grow and harvest and eat!

 Tomatoes - they got off to a slllllllloooooowwwww start, but are going strong now.

 Lots of jars of sauce are lining my pantry shelves - ready to eat this winter!

 It took me a while, but I finally remembered to cut some zinnias to bring inside to enjoy.

 The sunflowers look tired and sad, but they still tower over the rest of the garden.

 Other flowers in the yard are doing well, too. With all the plants around the house being new it's been interesting to see what has worked and what hasn't. :-)

 Tomatoes - they just keep coming!

The most painful lesson I learned has no photo to go with it. I had a bunch of pumpkin and gourd vines growing in the garden - some volunteer, some intentionally. And today, we gathered up all the vines and the straw mulch around them, made a pile and set them on fire. Yes, we burned at least a quarter of our garden this morning. All because the infestation of squash bugs was utterly out of control. When I picked up a vine, the ground underneath was just covered in squash bugs. So, they all had to go. Next year - no pumpkins.

 And sometimes, I find time to relax in the hammock.

 And the boys sometimes put down their baseballs and gloves and spend time pushing each other on the swing.

The garden and yard can be a lot of work, but when the work is done and we can sit back and enjoy our space it's truly lovely.