Sunday, July 06, 2008

The Garden is Growing!

We had such a terrible spring- so cold and rainy that I didn't get my garden in at the regular time. I didn't want to write the garden off, but felt like I was so far behind I couldn't have the garden I wanted. I kept running into people from our church's food bank and they ask, "How's the garden?" I didn't want to admit, "It's not going or growing" and we wouldn't be able to bless the food bank this year, but I also didn't want to put a lot of extra pressure on myself.
Family is such a blessing!! A month or so ago my sweet husband rototilled the garden. He decided to plant some grass in a couple areas that used to be garden so it wouldn't be too overwhelming. The soil is so beautiful and the winter rye we planted last fall added a lot of nutrients to the soil.

Also, my mom came up and helped me clean up and plant MANY seeds! Poor mom kept asking, "Are we done yet?" I kept showing her more seed packets I had bought. So we hustled and much to her dismay and aching muscles we got the garden in. We planted bush peas, bush beans, beets- choggia, red, lettuce- romaine, mesclun mix, paris mix, butterhead, arugula, and more, cucumbers- pickling, muncher, and more, butternut squash, sweet meat squash, carrots- Thumbalina, Rainbow, tomatillos, spinach, tomatoes, delicata squash, hubbard squash, pumpkins- Dill's Great Atlantic, Cinderella, Howden, Acorn squash, onions- walla walla, slicing, cabbage, and I'm sure there's more out there that I'm forgetting. Two things we didn't plant are potatoes and corn. Corn takes up a lot of space and since he made some of the garden grass, I didn't do the corn. We still may do pototoes...we'll see.

So tonight from the garden we enjoyed a spinach salad with strawberries. The strawberries, although very late are DELICIOUS!! We added a little feta, mandarin oranges, sliced almonds, onion and a balsamic vinegrette and... Oh so good!

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