Tastes of Summer

Every summer we say that we are going to have a garden, but most of the last 6 summers we have moved at some point in the summer and so it never really happened. Owen's first summer, when we lived in Missoula, we had a garden but between trying to figure out the whole parenting thing and taking 2 weeks off to go to Michigan, we grew more weeds than anything else. Well, this year, we got a plot in the community gardens near our apartment. We have had a good time getting things planted and Owen really loves working in the dirt. It has definitely been a learning process though and we don't always do things the right way, or even the way we would like. We have to keep reminding ourselves that it is as much for the experience and learning as it is for anything else, like when all 6 broccoli plants went to seed before we got any broccoli. Now we know broccoli is a cool weather crop and should be planted and harvested early.

We went to our garden plot this morning and much to Owen's delight (and my surpirse, I have to admit), there were vegetables to harvest. We picked 2 large bags of lettuce and many, many carrots. With each one Owen would declare that it was the "biggest carrot in the world." And one large head of cauliflower. We have lots and lots of green tomatoes. Our tomato plants are so big that I'm not sure the cages we bought at the garden store will contain them. Our beans our climbing and our cucumbers (planted a little late) are coming up. We even have some very small peppers. Ken was tying up the pepper plants when he knocked off a small green pepper. It wasn't ready to be picked yet, but there it was. He handed it to Owen to put in the bag with the carrots. When I turned around, I saw Owen happily munching away on the pepper. That was the biggest proof of our success in this gardening adventure. Watching Owen happily eat the pepper that he had helped plant and water.

And while I missed the picture of him eating vegetables straight from the garden, I did get a picture of him eating the popsicles we made this morning. They weren't ready yet after lunch so I promised him one after his nap. He woke up from his nap and as he was walking down the stairs, still half asleep and rubbing his eyes, he was saying "are they frozen yet?" Aren't those the taste of summer - veggies fresh from the garden and popsicles straight from the freezer.