growing like weeds: an early summer garden glimpse

It seems like not that long ago I was wagging my finger at Aaron...."no garden...no more chickens...no pigs....we will have way too much on our plate this summer". Ever so slowly I realized how ridiculous those words were and how important these summer plans are to us as a family (with the exception of pigs we are doing just about everything I said we wouldn't...and to be honest...if we saw a few piglets up for grabs we would welcome them at this point). Being in the garden, chasing chickens and inspecting for insects is just what we do...a baby will certainly not slow this family down. No matter the size of the garden or number of plants growing, gardening has been something Aaron and I have always done together...each and every season. We have gardened at my parents, on steps of apartments and even the summer we spent in Switzerland. I give him much of the credit and am (mostly) eager to follow his lead. One of the reasons we love this place we rent at the moment is there is no shortage of space and fertile soil...it would be a waste to watch the weeds take over! This year we opted to try out black plastic since our weed issue is a little crazy. We also spread our rows wide enough so that the mower could fit between each row - Aaron ideally dreaming of wacking back the weeds with a brew in hand (so far every time we go to use the damn mower something breaks on it...arg).

We have been enjoying tender greens and purple top turnips in salad. The kids are mining the snap peas and we are all anticipating the tomatoes, corn, carrots, beets and oh so much more to come. In addition to the big vegetable garden (where the corn and pigs were last year) I converted the old vegetable space to a cutting flower garden. Sort of my first "solo project" ...all on my own I planted those seeds, mulched and have sort of kept up with the weeds. There have been failures (amish cockscomb and globe amarynth to name just two) and much success....straw flowers, love lies bleeding, calendula, zinnias and more. I am dreaming of a late summer/fall bursting with color, flowers drying for winter arrangements and maybe even some calendula salves. Yes there is a whole lot of dreaming and anticipation going on while our hands busily pull weeds and find potato beetles.

afternoon inspections are a must

dreams of tomatoes and gasp...even dare I say zucchini

potatoes and a pick up in need of a new home...

Smoky and her chicks...
(we let one of our broody hens set on a pile of eggs - and it happened...just 21 days later and on my birthday to boot we had several little peepers pecking their way into the world...as you can imagine Isabelle was in her glory!)