Gardening 2008

We have been trying to raise a garden for quite a few years, and didn't have a whole lot of success until last year. I thought since I spend a couple hours almost every day working in it, that I would share some pictures.

We were a little late getting started - this picture was taken the 13th of April, when almost all the snow had melted. Then we had a little bit more snow on April 30 and May 1. It was a very very looong and depressing winter.

There are my beans on the far left- we bought the pole variety, but after getting all the post and string supports up, discovered they were actually bush beans. In front of the thornless blackberries, we also have brand-new asparagus plants which are the fern looking bushes that you can barely see. We won't harvest anything off them until next spring or summer. They are one of the few periennial vegtables that you can grow.

My tomato, brocolli, and pumpkin plants. Nothing to eat yet, just a lot of green 'fruit', leaves, and vines so far.

No, wait. We now have little red cherry tomatoes to eat. Yummy! I can't wait until the bigger ones are ripe, so I can have fresh tomato-and-onion sandwiches like my dad probably still eats. When I was a kid, I always thought he was crazy, the way he'd go out with his bread and pocket knife and make a fresh sandwich right out in the garden...but now I know exactly what he loves so much about it. Good memories :)

Raspberries, corn, and fruit trees. So far we have harvested a lot of strawberries, beans, peas, raspberries. We are looking forward to eating (and freezing) the rest of itWe bought a couple turkeys to raise for Thanksgiving. This one is Stick. Good thing we had bought two, since Drum died. One minute he was running around, and the next minute he just keeled over :( Mark had been told just the day before that they tend to do that. We are hoping that Stick will grow quickly!We also thought it would be a good idea to raise chickens, too. We have some layers- we get 6-8 eggs a day, which is enough for us and a few for Isaac to sell for his mission fund. He does a great job taking care of them!