Keep Calm and Garden On

Gardening used to be very difficult for me. I always assumed I couldn't grow anything and never really took the time to try.

There is so much to take into consideration, it's not just put the plant into the ground and hope for the best. Which is what I originally thought I needed to do...

You have to make sure your soil is good quality and is able to grow what you want to grow. I can't plant my blueberries until I get the right mixture of sand/soil for the pot. Then you have to keep your garden free of all the weeds. It usually takes a few hours each week to do this because it's a never ending battle. And then, once all that's done, you have fight off the animals and bugs. So many creepy bugs. It has taken me a LONG time to get over all the bugs. I still run if I find a spider. It's better than the year before when I was running after finding a worm...

Once you get past all of that, the garden might just produce something worthy of entering your kitchen. All those hours you spent hunched over, squatting in your garden for hours, plucking each and every weed that dared showed it's ugly, green limbs through the dirt, while you gain awkward tan lines and back aches. It's frustrating and exhausting work, but you come to realize it's all for something absolutely wonderful.

You realize that nothing tastes better than that juicy, red tomato, picked right off the vine, still warm from the sun. Those specific tomatoes, that you spend months weeding around and helping grow up their trellis, are probably the best tasting tomatoes you will ever eat.

Or when you get a handful of green beans, fresh from the garden and rinsed clean from the garden hose. They are so crunchy and burst with all that delicious "green" flavor that makes even the youngest kids pluck them from the bush before they even make it into the house.

Never will a strawberry be as sweet as the ones that you have grown from seed 3 years ago, taking care to keep them safe from birds and bugs. These aren't the ones that you ruin with sugar for strawberry shortcake, but eat straight so that you can savor each and every bite of that ripe, red berry that you worked so hard to grow.

There's a lot of work that goes into my garden, but I've never regretted my decision to do it each year. In fact, I've been trying to convince my husband to turn our backyard into a farm. Who needs grass when we can grow food to eat?! I do like flowers, but my favorite are the flowers that produce the strawberries, raspberries and green peppers. Those are the prettiest flowers in my opinion.

I took some pictures of the early stages of my garden. Just because I like to see the changes as the months go by. We've had a TON of rain recently, so things are looking very nice in there lately. We'll be enjoying green beans and strawberries in about a week. I can't wait!

 

My pepper garden.

I have two red pepper plants, two green pepper plants and one jalapeno plant.

Yummy.

 

My raspberry bush.

I love watching these grow!

So fun to watch them form each day into something so delicious!

 

My two cucumbers.

Never tried these before, anxious to see how they turn out.

 

My green beans!!

There are already so many growing, they should be ready next week.

Although, these rarely make it into the house, once the kids see them.

 

The strawberries.

Tons and tons of these.

This is their third year in the garden.

We should see some good ones.

 

So pretty. 

 

Rosemary.

I use a lot of this, so I have two bushes.

 

My tomatoes.

I didn't get many last year, so I'm hoping for better results this year.

I really want to make my homemade pasta sauce, but it takes SO many tomatoes.

I hope this will be enough.

 

 

Our grape plant.

I've never tried this before either.

We are thrilled to see it doing OK so far!

 

Look!

Baby grapes!

Aren't they cute?

 

 

I also have lots of assorted flowers and vines growing, but I think that's probably a big enough post for one day.

Gardening was never something I thought I could do well, but it doesn't take talent, just patience and time. Sunshine and water probably don't hurt either. It's so awesome watching it grow, day after day, and I can't wait to see how everything turns out!