Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The Garden

No, this post is not about Gilroy Gardens. Though we have continued to enjoy GG, this post is about an actual garden. Mr. Frisby and I, along with little Stella, have joined some friends from church in a "co-op garden".


A family we know from church has a large property and for several years they have planted a large garden on their property with several other people from church. This year, we feel very blessed to be able to join them. We all put money in to pay for water and then every Monday night, we all go to the garden and work for an hour. When it's time for harvesting, we'll divide up the fruits based on need. Bigger families will take more of the harvest and smaller families will take less. As I understand, once school is out for summer, we'll also be adding in a potluck dinner to the Monday night gardening fun. Since I've only done a very minimal amount of gardening, I'm excited at the opportunity to learn how to do it much better.


We've had four weeks of gardening so far and we've been having a great time. We've planted tons of stuff: onions, tomatoes, peppers, corn, potatoes, melons, carrots, lettuce, sunflowers, etc, etc. Here's Stella helping Mr. Frisby plant the potatoes.


Since he's from Idaho, he's the designated potato expert and probably our family's most valuable contribution to the gardening efforts.

At first most of the work was planting. Now, it's weeding. Lots of weeding. But, before long it will be harvesting. It's going to be exciting!

Stella seems to absolutely love the gardening time. She enjoys immensely the opportunity to run around outside for an hour. Plus, the neighbors have a barn with horses that's pretty close to the garden, so Stella can get glimpses of the horses when they stick their heads out the windows. She gets really dirty and she loves it.

Sometimes she's helpful (weeding)


and sometimes she's not (running away as fast as her little legs can go)


but she's always curious (checking out the tomato cages)


and makes garden night lots of fun.


I don't know how much she's actually learning about gardening at this point in her life, but I'm hoping we can continue this activity for years to come and I'm banking on it teaching her some valuable life lessons.




In the meantime, we're really enjoying our gardening time and we look forward to the fruits of our labors.


3 comments:

Ashlee said...

Sometimes I wish I didn't live in a desert. This is one of those times! Enjoy your fresh veggies from the garden, and know that I'm totally jealous...

Dalene said...

This is like the coolest thing in the world. Can you say Law of Consecration?!?! I want some land so we can start a garden! What am I saying??? I hate getting my hands dirty!!!

MomandDad said...

What a little troop. I hope she eats everything she grows.