Blessings

I have been counting my blessings - I do all the time - but since my beloved dad's passing earlier this month, I try and counter the grieving with the rejoicing, for life does, indeed, go on for the rest of us, and knowing Dad, he would hate to see me sunken with sadness.

I am very happy dad got to see the veggie garden fairly recently, a couple of months ago in fact, and he was awed by everything we had growing. My poor little dahlias were struggling at best, but I think I have some new influence up there yonder, because ever since dad left us, the dahlias have been blooming and blooming:


Our corn, too, has already delighted us with its sweetness. Last year we only got a few ears, but this time there's about a dozen almost ready to pick - this was the first one:


The Concord grapes are growing - I am meant to make jelly with these and we'll see whether that actually happens but it's been nice to watch them grow from little pinhead-sized dots to their current state.


We've had tons of onions already, not only the spring onions (their season is now done) but some of these yellow and white beauties. They've gone into omelets, chicken dishes, even gave one to mom for her stew. They're not the huge onions you see in the market, but that's perfect for us, because one of these is just about the size we usually need.


My Early Girl tomatoes do not disappoint, they are flavorful and have definitely made up for the disappointment of last year, when all I got all year were two marble sized tomatoes. They're doing better on this side of the yard!



The favorites are the strawberries, I can barely pick them and rinse them before they're in one of the boys' mouths. Usually my oldest gets them :D but they're so good and sweet, I can't blame him at all.

We are all enjoying the fruits and veggies from our backyard and next year, we're doing it from seed, baby! I mean to start some heirloom varieties now that I have my fancy potting bench to help me along. I'm already making lists of what I'll get, it's so exciting! When all is said and done, the veggie garden is helping us eat better, because we don't want to waste any of this precious organic produce, and help our boys eat more veggies, not to mention saving a little money off the grocery bill.

I think Dad would be proud. Ok, who am I kidding, I never could do anything wrong in his eyes, so I know he's watching us pick those strawberries and corn and onions and smiling down at us. And that's a blessing to me.

Summer goodness in the ground

We hit our favorite plant place, OSH, last week since it was time to get our summer veggies in the ground and they were having a 2-for-1 sale. We have had good luck with OSH plants and had decided to expand last year's garden since it had been such a roaring success.

Check out the bok choy we planted a few weeks ago!
It's going to be great in a stir fry, yum yum.

The chard is doing wonderfully:
We lucked out in that the next 2 days it rained a lot so the soil had a chance to settle.

Gorgeous butter lettuce:


Last but not least, I got some flowers.
These pretty dahlias are going to brighten up my veggie land of green :D

Most of our available ground has been taken so I think that's it for this year's planting, but we'll see. We also planted corn and bell peppers, last year's corn was sweet and delicious, I hope as much this year!