How Does Your Garden Grow?

All of my gardening skills, such as they are, I got from my Papaw. He was a lifelong gardener and I have lovely memories of his backyard garden in Irving. It seemed huge to me then, but now as an adult I realize it must not have been all that big, after all. I remember long hours on his back porch shucking corn, snapping beans, and shelling peas, all the while listening to the adults talk about this that and the other. My cousin Adam used to help Papaw till the back and mow the front...one of my favorite memories of Adam is sitting on the riding lawnmower singing the theme song to "Green Acres" at the top of his lungs. Adam always was a huge ham!

I'm sure my memory is just hitting the tip of the iceberg, but I know Papaw always grew tomatoes, corn, peas, green beans, potatoes, blackberries, strawberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, and probably a whole bunch more I'm forgetting. Nothing tastes as good as home-grown fruits and vegetables!

I've been pleased that Bill was bitten by the gardening bug, too! He built our Square Foot Gardens from scratch, and to be totally honest he actually puts a lot more grunt work into the garden than I do. He's usually the one out there watering almost every evening in the summertime!

This year we're growing tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, blueberries, strawberries, purple onions, yellow onions, broccoli, red potatoes, yellow potatoes, carrots, rosemary, dill, cilantro, basil, and corn. We're even trying our hand for the first time at having a grapevine. We're starting to get some babies on some of the plants and I'm so excited!

Did you know that if you don't pick the broccoli when it's ready that it will flower? I had no idea. My stepson noticed the other day and said "my broccoli isn't broccoli anymore!" Check it out, that bunch of flowers that you see was actually a head of broccoli a few days ago:

Looks like we have some little buggies feasting on the leaves, too. :)

Here are a few more pictures of our gardening delights!