Our garden

 

        One of pleasures I've recently discovered is watching seedlings sprout up from the ground. For many years, my gardening (using the term very loosely) has consisted of buying plants and planting them in my garden and tending to them throughout the summer. It is fun to watch them grow and produce vegetables or flowers, but there is something about planting small dry seeds and watering them carefully not knowing what if anything will happen.

        I've had two successful carrot crops the past few years. This has given me the confidence to attempt to grow other vegetables from seeds. This year I decided to grow snow peas. I planted two rows carefully spacing the seeds. I misted the ground so it wouldn't be completely dry. A few days ago I thought I saw a line of seedlings where I had planted carrot seeds. Yesterday, I saw two pea seedlings above the ground. It made me so happy to see those little green plants poking up. I hoped that in time more would start popping up.

    In an effort to grow more food plants, we bought six strawberry plants and a raspberry bush. When I was young, I remembered that my dad had both of these in our garden. I know at one point in time he grew enough strawberries to make freezer jam.

    The strawberry plants are growing nicely where we put them and we have already had three small berries from them. I had forgotten how much better the berries taste when grown in a home garden. They are so much better than the ones bought in the store.

    We planted the raspberry bush in a sunny spot where our ash tree used to be. When I checked it the other day, I thought I saw some small berries forming on it. I honestly wasn't expecting to see any berries on it until next year. 

        The flower garden is flourishing as well. I was pleased to see that some bachelor buttons had popped up. I planted them from seed last year. I wasn't expecting to see them again. The daisies are starting to open and some of the lilies are blooming too. Unfortunately the rabbits have chewed the tops of two of my lily plants so there will be no blossoms from them this year.

        It makes me so happy to see everything growing well. I even saw some small green tomatoes on our grape tomato plant. Hopefully the vegetables will continue to grow. I look forward to the things we can make with the vegetables from our garden.