The Fruits of My Labors.

It's amazing to me that these gorgeous flowers will turn in to some very tasty and yummy fruit. At least I hope they do. That is the goal after all.

Well, technically, the food garden is Jason's labors, but we are just going to go with it, k? For the past few days I have looked out my window and seen these gorgeous flowers. They are cantelope. And judging by the amount of blooms present, we are going to have a BUTT LOAD of cantelope. Good thing every one likes it!

The thing about the garden is this, I really wanted it. I'm trying to have our family as a whole eat healthier and for us to spend less on groceries. I'm sure that everyone out there can appreciate that.

These are, I believe, green peppers. I didn't have any other kind of pepper seed, so I'm pretty certain that is what they are. We'll see as they grow.

The plan is that we'll keep the seeds from the fruits and veggies we harvest and plant them again next year. We'll clean them, dry them, and store them in clearly labeled paper envelopes. Again, that's the PLAN. I'm also hoping to add more variety to the garden next year. I know a lot of stuff was planted, not all of it came up.

We also have strawberries in their first year, so the fruit from them won't be much at all. Tons of tomato plants that I need to tie up to the fence to keep them from toppling and to spread out a bit. A vine plant that is watermelon or zuchini or possibly pumpkin. It is just beginning to get it's flowers so we'll see how it goes. Tons of carrots. Quite a bit of lettuce, that I'm not sure when I should harvest. And I *think* a broccoli plant or two.

All of this planting and growing is teaching me that it is all trial and error. We buy things that don't grow. So we try again next year. Hopefully we'll get better at identifying the weeds before they get as well grown as they are this year. I still need to thin out and weed 1/2 of the flower bed up front. I recently ripped out all of my herbs and cut my bulbs to the quick.

With the herbs, only the cilantro grew. I bought some potted herbs, ones meant to be planted outdoors. I hope they grow well. And I'm wondering, how do I harvest those? Do I rip up the entire plant, just take the leaves off? What?

I love to see all of this stuff grow and know that I, and Jason, and even the kids to a point, have helped nurture it, to helped it thrive so that it can enrichen our lives.

The kids' current sceince projects are sunflower seeds. They are the small pretty variety, not the ones with the huge heads. They each have 15 seeds, though Jayden only has 14 now, she dropped one on the floor. They'll plant them out front, and watch and chart their growth. Lots of sketches and charts and paragraphs will be written about these flowers. I'm sure there will also be some competition about them. I'm just glad that I'll be able to share what I love, growing these plants, with the kids and have them learn too.

As the next few weeks go by and summer leads to fall, I'll be posting more pics of our fruits of labor. Maybe you can share your tips with me about harvesting and planting for next year.