Je suis de retour! I'm back!

I am just at the end of my first week of summer 2013! While I am called to teach and on most days feel rewarded doing it, there is NOTHING I like more than being home with Jim (We just celebrated 27 years!), with visiting family (especially grandsons), and with my garden.

Our sweet, sweet, open-minded church is another blessing. Today, we heard  the most genuine and heart-felt story of simple unconditional love shared by one of our dads. We also began the bittersweet first goodbyes to Alicia, who has been the best and most influential pastor (by her sincere love of people) that Jim and I have ever shared. Doug, the baritone/tenor in our quartet (His wife Robin, Jim, and I make up the rest.) and I sang The Prayer, which we dedicated to Alicia. Boy...you talk about pulling at the heart strings when we finished only to find Alicia and most of the choir in tears! I'm not preaching because church isn't for everybody, but I do wish everyone had access to the kind of renewal, love, and sense of community that Jim and I get from serving in this little bethel.

Though we have enjoyed some early goodies from my garden (I want to name it...any ideas???), today's harvest moved me to post this picture and begin chronicling my efforts, hopefully with contributions by my girls...Mindy, Christen, Sacha and soon Qian! There's still room for more :0) What I would really like this blog to become, is a place for our family and all its various branches to share gardening stories and tips, recipes, party ideas...in short...all the things that move our family.

Today's Harvest, Father's Day 2013

 

Beets, Carrots, Yellow Squash, and Grape Tomatoes

 

Let me know if you would like to be added as a posting member.

Also, please help me name my garden :0)



Melon-choly

We have flowers, but no melons yet. Here's hoping they start growing soon.

Now that's a courgette!

I'm fairly obsessive about my garden; that's probably obvious. I check for ripe veggies, prune leaves, and water at LEAST once a day, often in the morning and in the evening.

That said, look what was hiding in the recesses of my zucchini patch?

Can you see it?

What about now?

There it is!

 

Check back...more to come in this blog :0)

THE Tomato

This season, I planted beefsteak tomatoes, brandywine tomatoes, plum tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes. I began them all inside. Once I moved them outside to my garden, we had some bad weather, and I had to replant some of them from seed, directly into the soil.

Before the weather got too hot, I only managed to get one of the two larger varieties to fruit and only ONE at that. I watched it constantly to make sure that nothing bothered it, put extra fencing around it, and generally fretted over its existance for the past six or so weeks.

Finally, it was red enough to pick. I gave it a special place in the house while I allowed it to ripen a bit more.

Have I gone too far?

I warned the men to leave it alone, worried that one of the midnight kitchen raids might leave me with one less tomato.

Tonight, we are going to see how THE tomato is. I'll serve it sliced with basil from my garden and crumbled feta (storebought...did you know that you can fairly easily make homemade feta???). I hope it is as yummy as it is beautiful :0)



Japanese Water Garden

This past Mother's Day, JC did something very special. He created a Japanese water garden for me. He picked out a huge planter and several beautiful water plants, and then put it all together to create the garden. In addition, he added several beta fish. All but one, unfortunately, were lost due to a storm and the garden overflowing.

Bluey, as Poppy and I call him, is still swimming strong! I go out in the evening, sit on the swing, and wait for him to come munch on the food I put in his home. (During the day, he hides at the bottom of the planter as the top of the water becomes too warm.)

 

 

This evening, Bluey was very cooperative and even let me take some pictures and a movie of him!

That wasn't, but this is!

I posted the other day that I thought I had my first watermelon. Well, it apparently wasn't pollinated enough. But...I think this one is!

And hopefully this one will get pollinated tomorrow :0)



Soy

Soybean baby in our Throw-it-all-out-on-the-ground Garden.