When your parents were young, Grampie and Grammie always had gardens. Most years we had two large gardens, one on the East of our house and one on the West. But gardening wasn't just for the two of us.
It was a family project and our children were always involved. They helped plant, weed, harvest, and prepare the vegetables for canning and freezing.
And they ate to their hearts' content. One famous story is about the beautiful carrots that Grampie tended all summer long, just waiting for the most perfect ones that he had ever grown. I think his heart was pretty shattered when he discovered that his children had been playing Peter Rabbit with his prize carrots! Bethany said the best way to eat a carrot was to pull it from the ground, wipe it off on your jeans and eat it immediately. I had to agree -- and you know what they used to say when I was a CHILD? "You have to eat a bushel of dirt before you die." What that really meant was, "a little garden soil won't hurt you!"
It was fun putting these pictures together for you today so you could see in the background our garden from just a few weeks ago. And look at it NOW! We are already eating beans, edible pea pods, cucumbers, lettuce, beet greens, Swiss chard, zucchini, broccoli and baby carrots (from when we thin them). A couple of weeks ago we had lots of good, fresh spinach but we pulled that when it went to seed.
Having a good garden is VERY hard work! We till the soil, add compost, plant the seeds, add mulch, weed, feed, and get very hot and tired. But when the vegetables start to come, we feel the reward that comes from working to take care of ourselves. We think of other people, too. Grampie said that at least 1/2 of the fun we have from raising a garden is to share some of our crops with other people. I think the other 1/2 is having tasty, healthful food in jars and in our freezer.
Today this was our lunch: salad with our own lettuce and cucumbers, 1/2 ear of corn apiece from the grocery store (it is too early for ours), beet greens, beet pickles from last year's crop, and some cheese. I love the kind of meal where we just go out and shop in the garden rows and pick what we want!
You may see some funny things in this garden! Did you see the wind chimes on the bean poles? We hope they scare the deer away! Did you see the socks on the stakes where the tomatoes are tied? We spray them with VERY, VERY smelly deer repellant. It smells like rotted eggs and garlic (and that is what is in the spray). We hope the deer sniff that and say, "YUCK! I am not going into THAT garden." Another thing we have is aluminum foil pie pans tied to a pole with yarn. When there is a breeze, they rattle and bang. We hope the deer are worried about that sound and stay away, too. Sometimes we even hang a "Dollar Store Radio" in our garden and let the talk shows play all night. We think they might get bored and stay away from our garden. We think the deer have losts to eat around here and we do not want them as guests in our garden. We think they don't have to pay grocery bills, but we do!
And you may have noticed our "raised beds". Those are big wooden "boxes" filled with soil and standing along the edge of our garden. Grampie made three of them for us to try out. We like having more plants in less space!
We thank God for all of the beautiful variety of fruits and vegetables that grow in the gardens and orchards of this world. It was so loving and kind of Him to make so many different tastes, smells, and colors for us to enjoy!
Do you think YOU will have a garden when you have your own place someday?
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