21 to 0

We picked 21 cherry tomatoes today.

Not one of them made it home.

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.

~ Lewis Grizzard

The snack garden?

We've been hanging out in the garden. The kids eat the cherry tomatoes and the peas and beans faster than I can grow them. We've taken to calling it the snack garden. I am not convinced I will ever manage an actual meal from it unless we plan to eat it in the garden - nothing makes it home.
We water and weed and I take pictures of flowers and weed some more. The kids eat, climb the trees, chase butterflies, call to the birds, play in the fairy garden and annoy help the neighbours. And I weed some more.  Then we all go home and wish we had more cherry tomatoes and raspberries to eat.

Patience...is hard

So many things in the garden are close... the peas, the beans, the tomatoes, the carrots - ok not really for the carrots but we had to pull one up to see!  Sara ate it anyway. I can see that we will need more space next year. I am not sure much of the produce will make it home. It seems to get eaten at the garden.

Yummmmm

We ate them - all two of them. Emily had the first one as it is her plant, and the rest of us shared a tiny bite of the second. Can't wait for more.

The plot after a month away

Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden.
~Robert Brault

We returned home from the extended (and somewhat unplanned) trip to the cottage not really knowing what to expect in the garden. With only a short garden visit on our one weekend in June that we were not at the cottage, we were a bit worried about the state of the plants. Thankfully all was well, if a bit weedy and dry. The rhubarb has grown by leaps and bounds, there are plenty of zucchini flowers, lots of green tomatoes, the beans and peas are trailing up the tee pee, and the herbs look great with the exception of the basil which I am hoping will bounce back.

There were lots of raspberries and some early blackberries on the canes that surround our plot and the kids quickly gave up weeding and watering chores for picking. (I think one or two of the raspberries made it home -  grin.) Colin and Sara came back however, and spotted a "gigantic" cucumber. Well two actually. And as they are the cucumber fans in the family it was quickly decided that they could do the honours and do the first official real harvesting.

In addition to the weeding and harvesting, we've been working on the structure of our little space. We've exhausted the onsite rock piles and so have made a few late evening runs to scavenge rocks from various construction sites around town so we can ring our beds and mark the paths in the hopes of stopping any further trampling.  The kids thought it was a blast to pick rocks (!?). However our favourite chore by far was the installation of our new garden sign, which was made by friends as a birthday gift for all of us. We've already had so many comments about how lovely it is.  It makes the garden seem more like our special space, and as a bonus it helps mark the division between our space and our neighbours.

Sara and I also spent a few hours there on Sunday. We planted a high bush blueberry which we picked up on clearance from a local nursery, in part to "pay it forward" and in part to pay back those past and current gardeners who planted all the raspberries. We've also planted a small wildflower pollinator patch across from our plot and need to make a sign to encourage people not to mow it. Most of our garden plot has been weeded, we've planted some more calendula and nasturtium and will replant lettuce and spinach and carrots this week (once this incredible heat settles down.) 

Since returning home last week, we have also stopped by the garden with little neighbourhood friends and treated them to a tour and a taste of fresh picked, still warm from the sun raspberries. It was heartwarming to see my kids give the tour of "their" garden and talk about our garden neighbours and the idea of a community garden. I love that they get that benefits of community gardening are about more than just the garden.

Morning in the garden

Morning is the best of all times in the garden. The sun is not yet hot. Sweet vapors rise from the earth. Night dew clings to the soil and makes plants glisten. Birds call to one another. Bees are already at work.”
~ William Longgood


So there isn't a lot happening in our garden plot at the moment - no bionic carrots leaping from the soil, no magical bean teepee appearing over night. It is a bit hard for the kids, who have really never gardened before, to get a sense about why we are spending our mornings watering dirt. There is a lot happening around us - beautiful flowers, phlox, and chives, borage and tiny yellow ones I haven't identified yet.

This week, with the bulk of our plot taken care of I turned towards some of the common community areas. I have started clearing out some of the raspberry patches and found a treasure of a giant but hidden rhubarb plant and a patch of mint under the thorns. I need to get a book for herbs to see if I can identify some of the other clumps that are healthy but inaccessible due to the thorns.  I have also been eyeing up a small space behind ours where I hope to be able to plant some wild flowers,  maybe Cosmos, Coreopsis, Echinacea, Wild Lupine and Bergamot.

In any case, I managed a small harvest of red raspberry leaves for tea and some mint to make minty lemonade for the kids. Soon I hope we will be bringing home a more substantial harvest after our morning visits.