A garden

If you checked the color of my thumb, you would see it is black.  Since the dawn of my memories, I have killed every plant I have ever tried to grow - with the exception of a tomato plant a year ago.  We finally got one tomato in about November.  I kid you not - and this was after an entire summer of watering the stupid plant - it is beautiful though, no?

Well, this year Jon convinced me to try gardening.  It kind of freaked me out.  Well, after drawing up diagrams, and convincing Jon that we needed a smaller garden, we began the prep.  We donned our boots (which I LOVE.. thanks Marla!) took our turns tilling, getting fresh compost on a wet day, testing the soil and fertilizing, picking out plants, putting up fencing and prepping.

 

 And then... our garden started growing... real plants.  I cannot tell you how ecstatic I was!  I had very little faith that anything would grow - remember I kill anything I try to grow - with the exception of my kids and dog.  We got our first jalapeno, tomato, green bean shoot, etc.

And I found myself loving each visit to the garden.  It has actually become quite therapeutic!  Our garden is growing.  Part of eating healthier, for us, is trying to grow some of our own crops.  We are really enjoying the fruits that are being harvested already.  The kids also are growing a love for gardening.  It is love.

Those poles are for our cherry tomato plants.. they are over 8 feet tall!

So, we are loving all of our fresh produce.  Our biggest producer, you ask?  Our basil!  Our sweet basil plants are producing so much that I am making pesto (I'll post on this later :)) and freezing it for future meals.  We also have a thai basil plant that almost died, but it is beautiful and bushy now.  We aren't sure when exactly to harvest the leaves, but are so excited that it is alive.

As our garden produces and we make various recipes from it, I will keep you posted :)