The Joys of a Garden

The garden is my favorite spot in our backyard. Every evening when I get home from work, I let Bradley out and end up spending 20 minutes weeding and checking in on my "plant babies," even before changing out of my work clothes. One of the best feelings of the day is taking off my shoes, rolling up my pants to mid-calf, and walking barefoot out into the lawn to side-step along the edge of the garden and go through these steps:

Step 1: Check on romas. One of the plants is really starting to produce--we should have gazpacho and pasta sauce coming out of our ears in a few weeks. Gotta love that lycopene!

Step 2: Flip up the leaves of the green beans. Do they need to be thinned out? I still wonder why they feel fuzzy/sticky and the ones in the grocery store don't...

Step 3: Check all of the plants for any dead or wilty leaves, then start weeding. Most of the plants have grown so big that I have trouble reaching behind them to pull up the grass, which means that the grass isn't bothering them, I suppose, just me. :)

Meanwhile, Bradley is sniffing for birds and sticking his nose in a hole under the fence, right under the tree. Perhaps he's checking on his bird garden. Is everyone still here? Anybody new to chase or stare at? It's therapeutic for both of us.

(This is a picture of my plant babies when they were freshly planted a few months ago. I'll follow up with another picture to show how much they've grown!)