Garden Beauty

We get so much joy out of our 3 little garden boxes.  My husband and I both grew up in families who enjoyed summer garden produce by the bushel basket full.  Randy's grandmother was famous for her huge strawberry patch and the wonderful jellies and shortcakes that came from it.  In my home, summers were spent sitting on the porch swing snapping green beans and the smell of canning was always in the air.  Somehow, the ability to garden (and the desire to do so) skipped our generation.  It wasn't until a few years ago that we began to dabble in gardening.  I am pretty sure the motivation was to enrich our grandchildren's lives and let them experience the "ground to table" cycle.  For several years we have had 3 garden boxes off our back deck (about 2 and 1/2 feet high, 5 foot long and 3 foot wide) in which we grow tomatoes, zucchini and peppers.  The kids get such a kick out of watching the vegetables grow and mature.  They help water the garden and pull weeds.  Lately, I have noticed that Randy and I are the ones getting the most joy from these veggies.  I have noted in previous posts that we have added lots more veggies to our diet.  We eat zucchini at least twice a week now.  So, when we saw the beautiful blooms on our zucchinis last week we did a little happy dance (okay, maybe just a squeal of joy!).  The blooms were so gorgeous I had to get my camera out.  We now have some small squash on the vines and anticipate eating these straight from our garden in the next week or so.  I am almost embarrassed to tell you that, while living on 50 acres offers many opportunities to have a large garden, these little boxes are all we have.  Last year we attempted to plant cantaloupe, watermelon, potatoes and corn in our little creek bottom land but the animals and drought wiped the crops out.  So, for now, we are happy to step out our back deck and watch the cute little veggies grow.  We are anxiously awaiting the hundreds of cherry tomatoes to ripen on our one gigantic bush.  This plant is so big and heavy we have had to get fence posts to prop it up.  How is your garden growing this year?