Garden '09

My wife maintains a fantastic garden in our backyard. When we first moved in I built one raised veggie bed for her, and this Spring I put a second one in next to it at her request. Lettuce, tomatoes, squash, various herbs, peas, and a bunch of other stuff depending on the season. Nothing beats my wife's buttercrunch lettuce.

The garden has been hit hard this year by see-sawing weather. So much rain caused the pea plants to rot, and an inundation of slugs due to the overly saturated ground has been nothing other than gross. Now we've had a week of upper 80s—90s the past two days—and our little garden instead of drowning is hurting for some H2O. Go figure.


But the garden this year has been more than veggies on the table. It's been a mini exploration with our daughter. Her curiosity has found us sitting in the garden bed plucking tomatoes and peas, feeling the texture of basil leaves, and generally discovering the vastness of such a small space. It's been awesome. And then we turn around and do the same thing in the flower garden too. So cool!

The other day I brought my camera out during our "dig". Below are some of the simple but wonderful things we've found in our two 6'x12' veggie beds, starting with the texture of the fence surrounding it all:


Here are our squash plants. They are not getting very big this year, probably due to the rain, but they are perfect Abby-sized


And some of our cherry tomatoes.


And after spending a little time exploring, the fruits of our effort ready for dinner tonight.


Kids sure do help to change your perspective in so many ways.