Gardening Fun

Look at our little garden...

I love it! I hate bugs, but I love gardening :)! Any way you do it... as a family project, with a little one for some one-on-one time, or alone while thinking or watching the birds playing across the yard (we've had some bold black and red birds lately), I love gardening :). I love that the bees are visiting it more as the cantaloupe flowers and that the butterflies are more plenteous at this time of year, as well :). I like mowing and other yard work, as well, but that can seem not-so-great after three hours of it (I'm not sure if gardening would be the same? I've never gardened for three hours straight ;).) ;). But weeding, watering, and harvesting I could do any day (and do :) ). I'm going to miss the garden when we move, I'm afraid it is going to be too late to put in a new one there and get anything this year...

It had been a week since I last went out, and I was worried at what I would find, it has been a while since we watered it :P. So it was a pleasant surprise when this is what I found...

Tiny cantaloupes finally forming! This is the largest at the size of a tennis ball :)... Little fuzz ball ;)! And peas, and cucumbers, and tomato flowers :)...

I rushed through weeding so that I could show everybody ;). I was thankful that the plants are so big now that they seem to be choking out the weeds instead of vice versa ;). I took in the peas first, I couldn't carry everything at once...

Bethi's peas vines have done amazing, in the past two weeks we've pulled off a handful or two a day to get that bowlful :).

Abbi was thrilled that her Sugar peas were finally plumping up, too :). (Peter liked them as well ;).)

Then I went back out to get the cucumbers... I told everybody to "stay right there!", and Mommy ran thinking I was bringing in "something slimy" ;). Look at all of those!...

 

Ten cucumbers, with at least twice as many tiny little cucumbers that should be ripe by next week! It was sooo much fun to lift up a leaf and find one, then wonder if there were more, pick up another leaf and find three at once, and continue finding them :)...

You can't shell peas inside. Sorry, it is just wrong. Maybe I'm over sentimental. Or just crazy. But I had to take Abbi out ;).

We finally got everybody outside, and everybody was almost as excited as I was ;). 

"Look at that baby cucumber!"

Oh, but he saw a bird ;)...

"Please help, Mommy? He's right there!"

Emmi loved the cantaloupe :).

And we don't have a picture of Tori with the garden :(. I'll have to get one of her with her basil tomorrow. And her tomatoes! I *love* the smell of those tomato plants!!! Each plant has it's own smell, basil and lettuce and tomatoes, and even peas... weeding is really fun with such diverse smells :).

And speaking of gardens, the book "The Garden Where I Grow", by Gary and Jan Bower, is a wonderful book with biblical rhymes about how lessons from the garden go with lessons from the family, accompanied with beautiful watercolor illustrations!

"And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden..."

                                                  ~Genesis 2:8