Garden Delights, 2010

Before:

Now:

Our lonely stalk (or two) of corn:

Spaghetti Squash:

I dunno...I think this is Spaghetti Squash too.
It's a jungle out there, and hard to figure out what is where.

These are our pole beans. Our bush beans have already yielded a bunch of green goodness, and now these are starting to produce yummy beans. Perfect timing (on accident). I love it when a plan comes together...

Give me a week, and we will be inundated with tomatoes! I can't wait!

I planted Sunflowers this year--just because. This SF Gardening method has really given me the freedom to experiment, and plant a little of this and a little of that...just to see what happens. In Moo's hand is a flower from one of our acorn squash plants. It is an Italian delicacy to dredge these in egg and flour and quickly fry them in oil. Yum, yum, yum!

An up-close view of one of the squash flowers, complete with a very happy bee.

I have to figure out how to pickle these banana peppers to make them like the ones I get on my sandwiches at Subway.

No garden is complete without basil. Period.

Look at my itty-bitty cabbage...

...and my teeny-tiny brussel sprouts! So cute!

Planting, tending and harvesting my garden is the highlight of my summer. I totally understand why the Scriptures make clear that things began for the human race long ago in a garden. I mean, yes...for food. Duh. But I think that there is a bigger lesson--a very timely lesson, perhaps--to be had about that life in Eden. Whether one believes in a literal translation of those first chapters in Genesis or not, I think that almost anyone with spiritual insight would admit that we have lost a great deal of our connection to that garden...to the God given earth and its rich, life-giving resources. (Ascending soap box) In a time when oil is blackening the waters and beaches around the Gulf of Mexico and we find ourselves poisoned and/or sickened by our fast-food-prepackaged-antibiotic-hormone injected-pesticide laced-high fructose diet...well, call me crazy...but I think we ought to regroup and ask some tough questions and look to make some changes. (Stepping down off soap box)

So, for our little family, we are enjoying our humble little garden and rejoicing in the fruit that it bears. I am enjoying watching the beautiful process of transformation from seed to harvest. I'm enjoying how things make sense in the garden. I am enjoying that there is a simplicity of life to be had there. Not easy...but simple. It is good.