Sunday, August 16, 2009

Our bounteous bounty

At the beginning of the summer, we (and by "we" I mean "not me") spent a lot of time clearing out the weed patch that appeared to have once been a garden in our back yard. We (and this time I was involved) then planted green bean seeds and carrot seeds and several tomato and pepper plants. We planted watermelon and cantaloupe and pumpkin plants, all of us anxious to watch them grow and reap the rewards of our hard labor.

Unfortunately, our garden appeared to have been a complete failure. I figure it is partly due to the fact that our sprinklers are so crappy and it didn't get enough water and partly because I have no idea what I'm doing. Mostly the latter. Ok, fine, entirely the latter. Our cantaloupe and watermelon completely shriveled up into oblivion and the pumpkins aren't doing so hot either. Out of about a million green bean seeds, only 3 or 4 plants started to grow and the carrots looked a lot more like grass than anything else. Please don't make me talk about the tomatoes and peppers.

I wrote the garden off as experience and assured myself that we would do better next year.

Today I was outside enjoying the glorious day and while down in the grass, I noticed something red over in the garden. I walked over and. to my surprise, found a lone tomato. While I was over there, I thought I'd grab onto one of the carrots and pull. At the end of it was a tiny, bright orange baby carrot staring back at me. I moved to the green beans where I found that our three or four plants had actually produced real life green beans.

It was awesome.

I almost woke Jane up from a much needed nap to come see, but I didn't. Fortunately for me, she was up within about 15 minutes and the two of us had a grand time picking all the baby carrots, green beans, the tomato that I saved for her to pick and a tiny yellow bell pepper.

Wanna see? I thought you might.







So what did we do with our meager crop? We ate it. The whole lot all in one delicious home grown meal.



Blurry food. Mmmmmm.

Better luck next year? Let's hope.

6 comments:

Leslie said...

What a feast. I'm bummed I have no source for home grown tomatoes this year.

Lynda/Mom said...

Yes, tomatoes are hard to come by, and they're the best! We have very generous neighbors, and in the last two days I have been gifted fresh garden carrots, 3 kinds of squash, cucumbers, lettuce, onions, and grapes. No tomatoes. Next year I might try a garden just for the tomatoes.

Emily Call said...

yum. I can't wait to try a garden next year... mine will most likely be a flop too since I have never grown a garden either. Glad you were able to enjoy a little bit from it though!

Grammyzanne said...

That is the kind of surprised I like! Next year will be even better.

Sandy Brunson said...

Looks delicious! Good for you.

Cameron said...

hey- food on the blog that's a new one :-)
What's next? Week of Polas?