Survival of the Fittest

When the school year cranks up, certain sacrifices must be made.

The hours I spent slaving over the pristine, weed-free garden of June and July have been replaced with homework help, early bedtimes, and general post-learning chaos. Late August transforms my backyard paradise into a field of dying/dead plants, overrun with rambling weeds. A wasteland where only the fittest can survive.

Basically, may the odds be ever in their favor.

And that is fine with me. Our summer production was impressive, especially the millions of tomatoes I picked. There are a few green tomatoes that still cling to dying plants, but they're pretty much done. We did freeze some for the winter months and we have a jar of salsa that features our harvest. Good enough for me!

The cucumbers and peas are long gone. There may be some green beans smothered beneath the weeds, who knows. The bright yellow sunflowers that once stretched past my husband's head are now bent over and tired. Their sunny color is replaced by darkness and their faces look like they've seen some things...

This year Mother Nature reserved her hottest days just in time for my kids to sweat buckets in the car line. That means the two crops that live for the scorch of the sun, peppers and okra, are doing fine. The pepper plants look the worse for wear, but every time I peek there's a fully grown bell or jalapeno waiting to be picked. We have even frozen several this year to use for stew and chili. Our freezer finally looks like we have a working garden! As for okra, I think we've already chopped five quarts and it's still going strong.

PS: Last week we fried okra from September of last year that was processed in this way
{chopped into bite-sized pieces and thrown in a freezer bag} and it tasted like we'd just picked it.
In addition to the death and despair, there's a healthy amount of {horrifying} bugs in the garden, which helps my "may the best plant win" attitude. If I had a dollar for every foot-long grasshopper that landed on my shirt in recent days, I'd have a solid two dollars. And that is too much money.

I'm more cautious when entering the weedy garden these days, but I do make it out every so often to cut okra and see if my eyes catch anything else ready for harvest. My chickens have been enjoying all the forgotten tomatoes, too. Now if I can just convince them to go after the grasshoppers...

Any other growers develop this laissez-faire late-August attitude?
Have a lovely Wednesday, y'all.

Tomatoes

You know how they always tell you to write what you know?

Well at this particular juncture in my life... I know tomatoes.

As the heat index dwindled from triple digits to still-sweltering doubles yesterday, I stepped outside wearing my pickin' apron. The weekend was full of fun away from home, so it had been a few days since I'd explored. I started picking. Once my pouch was full, I emptied my goodies and went back for more. I picked 73 tomatoes yesterday, y'all.

Seventy-three.

As I walked through the weedy ditches between rows, avoiding errant branches and cringing at the *POP* a green tomato made beneath my boot, I noticed the wear of late July. Entire plants were falling over, branches were yellowed and withering, and a lot of my picking was done directly on the soil. Still, they carry on. Blossoms fight the unavoidable heat exhaustion and new tomatoes are visible job security for my chores.

Every morning before work I ask my husband if there's anyone he'll see today who would be interested in a bag of homegrown goodness. My mom's peddling for me on Facebook and my out-of-state cousins are jokingly asking for Fedex packages {don't think I won't resort to it}.

Although this sounds like an official tomatoes-are-coming-out-of-my-ears rant, I love it. There is nothing, I will repeat, nothing that beats the flavor. My Arkansas Traveler plants are giving three-bite pink orbs and my Cherokee Purples are all bigger than my hand. The flavor profile {oh yeah, I'm going there} ranges from deep and smoky to extra sweet and they all have been perfect sliced and sprinkled with salt.

I dropped off a bag of treasures to my friend Alicia on my way into town today and she has big plans for sauce. My mom bought some fresh mozzarella and paired it with deep-red slices and a few leaves from my basil plant. It was delicious. These fruits I have waited for since late spring have topped sandwiches and burgers and seven layer dip. And best of all, they delight my soul.

That unmistakable scent mingles with the bright basil when I walk the rows and brush against a tomato plant. Spying a ripe one hidden by the gnarls and knots of old branches makes my day. The satisfying twist-and-pull on a day's harvest is the therapy I need after sitting at a desk all day, and it gives a clarity to my mind that has yet to be matched.

This afternoon I walked out to see if any green toms had turned over night. I picked 27 tomatoes, y'all. Twenty-seven.

In closing, if you or yours live in or near Howard or Hempstead county and you're looking to buy some homegrown tomatoes, find me on social media and let me know.
Have a lovely Tuesday evening!

Picking & Grinning

We're in full harvest mode around here, my friends.

My kitchen table is covered in cucumbers, my counter-tops are decorated with tomatoes of all shapes, colors, and sizes, and my crisper drawer is full of green beans. The peppers horn their way in the nooks and crannies, and it looks like I'm ready to go to market... {and by that I mean force vegetables on everyone I see}.

The last time I posted about how wonderfully this year's garden is producing, I had little evidence. Today I am here to delight your Friday with photos. Last night Nora and I were on the hunt for two things requested by a friend: cucumbers and poblano peppers. Although Nora stopped to squeal at all of the teeny peppers, she let them be. She grabbed only the stems of only the largest specimens, twisted, pulled, and tossed them into my apron.

PSA: If you have a garden, you need a Roo Apron. This is in no way sponsored. I think Jonathan got it for my birthday a few years ago and it changed the game. I use it for my pickings, when I snip dead branches, when I weed, and anything else I'd otherwise pile up on the ground. You need it. Buy it.

This week our harvests have been overflowing. We've been delivering plastic bags to friends and family, but we're getting close to the preservation stage. We have never made our own salsa, but that's the direction Jonathan would like to go. We'll soon be searching for the best recipes, but let me know yours in the comments, please!

Aside from my snacks of fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, we have cooked a bit of our backyard spoils. Jonathan's mom just moved south and he helped her break her new kitchen in Wednesday night. One of the sides to their amazing pork chop meal was a mess of green beans. After snapping them, they were roasted with garlic and onion and chicken broth and they tasted incredible.

We also gave her the first batch of purple hull peas, and she shelled them right away. Even though I know how this seed-to-table thing works, it's amazing to see new crops come to life. The perfect little peas were tucked inside the deep plum shells, and Grammy said they were perfect. When I walked in the other morning to leave the boys with her, the smell of peas and ham filled the air. She told me she froze the extras and I told her there's much more where that came from.

My favorite season is in full swing around here and the garden is peaking in its happiness properties. It's nice to literally enjoy the fruits {re: vegetables} of our labor. Have a lovely weekend!

How's it Growing?

This morning I woke up with my entire family in my bed and bursts of thunder shaking the walls.

Lightning flashed and the early morning colors looked more like the dead of night. I did my best to roll everyone off my bed to get ready for a post-late-night-fireworks-show day. I downed as much coffee as I could handle and ushered the sleepy kids through the door. Since this morning's moody skies aren't doing much for my demeanor, let's talk about one topic that does: my garden!

Before I go on, please assist me in finding some wood to knock on. This year's garden is the best we've ever grown, and I'm about to make some claims that I don't want zapped by the next storm that rolls through.
Thank you for your cooperation.
This picture shows the back half of my garden, an area I like to refer to as tomato heaven. There are literally {literally} hundreds of green tomatoes dotting the twenty flourishing plants. Every plant has overtaken its cage, which is rare for us mid-season. Every plant is still a vibrant green and I've only cut one worm in half thus far. There's one tomato on my kitchen counter that is reddening as we speak, and so many more days from turning on the vine. I'm ready, and I hope everyone I know within a thirty-mile radius is, too.

Behind tomato heaven, as you can see, are the tallest sunflowers we have ever grown. Nora was thrilled when they outgrew her, then her brothers, then her mom, and now they're gaining on Jonathan. Once they open their faces to the sunlight, the view will be breathtaking.

Not shown in the picture, but making a grand appearance, are the cucumbers. On the first harvest day, I brought in ten. Then every day following that one, I brought in ten. We have eaten so many already and given even more to our family and our chickens. Last week we did a taste-test at my mom's house comparing our homegrown to a store-bought variety. There was no candle to hold, my friends. There is a huge difference in taste and I'll be happy to show you. Seriously. Hit me up. Bona Fide Bauer Backyard Cucumbers.

Green bean picking should start tomorrow and we're just waiting on the plentiful purple hull peas to get big enough. All of Jonathan's mom's porch shelling dreams will come true before too long! We also have okra starting to set in and the peppers... Oh my goodness, the peppers.

If you've read along with my garden saga over the years, you'll know peppers give us trouble. They usually don't start to grow until late July, and by September they consider giving us a little something. This year we've had to implement cages, as the plants are falling over because of all the fruit. We have about 10 bells needing to be picked, we're just waiting on a day we can be home to use them. We also planted poblano peppers for the first time and they have become the biggest pepper plants this hard has ever seen.

Even though it was too wet to snap photos this morning, just talking about the situation in my yard has lifted my mood. Maybe it even gave you a boost, too! This particular garden is my happy place. Every sense is filled with calm when I walk out there and the work feels less like labor and more like therapy. Gardening is my favorite. Here's to sunnier skies and more opportunity to get out and enjoy it.

Happy Hump Day, y'all!

The Garden Grind

I have a tough "Would you rather?" question for you this afternoon.

Would you rather... stand in your veggie garden in the thick evening heat, bending to scoop uprooted weeds to hoist into the wheelbarrow as buzzing mosquitoes surround you? Or walk toward the house to check on your children who are fighting in the A/C, their screams rising enough to permeate the walls of your home?

If the bite cream currently slathered on my body is any indication, you know my choice.

Mid-June is not harvest season here, but it's time to get the work horses going. Since we don't have any horses, that means my husband and I sweating in the garden. We have been pulling up the awful Bermuda grass that took root while we were in Florida, cultivating the base of each plant to give it breathing room, and checking every tiny fruit for signs of infiltration. We're not playing with bugs this year.

At this point, everything is growing beautifully and I think this year's garden is our best rowed version yet. I have seen itty bitty cucumbers, pint-sized peppers, and teeny tomatoes of all shapes and sizes. We even have thriving bean plants full of white flowers, something we haven't seen in years due to rude rabbits. This year we put the beans on the other side of the cucumber fence to see if it would confuse them. Maybe it did?

Eventually Nora decided to join and get her hands {and face} a little dirty:

She talked to all twenty tomato plants and helped pick weeds until she spotted an ant on her hand. After that she hightailed it back to her boisterous brothers, leaving behind her parents, her chickens, and a quiet, sweltering garden. The chickens were being so well behaved, I might have asked Lemon if she had room for one more in the coop. You may think I'm saying crazy things just to sound quirky.

I can assure you I am not.

Once I decided dealing with my children was better than sleeping near chicken manure, we wrapped up the evening and promised our return. Weekend plans include tilling the pathways, adding a thick layer of compost, and doing a little every day so it doesn't get out of hand {like it has every year before this one}.

We obviously have some work to do, but for now we are pretty proud of our garden.
How are things growing in your yard?

Happy weekend and happy gardening, y'all.

The Seedling

Since the moment I ripped open this year's seed packets, I have watched.

On a warm day when timing was right, we began. The seeds were put into place and watered, and our patience was tested. In the few weeks between that moment and today, I have noticed beauty in the waiting. I've also seen an incredible alignment between parenting and gardening. While I have about the same amount of experience in both areas, today's post will flesh out that metaphor a bit.

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The life cycle of a plant begins in the dark depths of the Earth.

It's comforted by warm soil on every side and waits until the conditions are right to make the first move. Above the soil we stand, wondering when the seeds will become seedlings, whether they'll be successful, or if they'll even emerge at all.

After several days, I notice a shift. Something small and green is proving mighty enough to literally move earth. Everything around the tiny plant is disrupted as the soil continues to break and settle... and break and settle. As the small plant pulls itself into the sunshine, other things are pushed out of the way. Small rocks and grass and weeds that don't seem nearly as important make way for the star of the garden.

In the weeks following what I think is the most delicate part of my plant's life, reality strikes. The seedling is no longer the most important plant in the garden. Although it needs my attention, it becomes clear I need to also focus on weeding and watering in other areas.

Sometimes the best thing for this little plant is to let it be.

As the plant thrives on its own and practically doubles in size overnight, I come to realize it never is truly still. The leaves move and stretch daily and the stem shows strength with age. As soon as I think it's good where it is, it turns into something else I love even more. I love the way its foliage contrasts against the bright blue sky. I love the way its smell floats in my yard like a perfume. I love this sign of life in a once empty plot.

Flowers dot the vibrant plant and the seed I scraped from the bottom of the packet is a memory I struggle to remember.

When the scorching summer sun fades behind the trees in the hours after dinner, I pull on my gloves and wander outside. At this stage my plant is unruly. Heavy fruit weigh it down and I try to retrain the branches going the wrong way. However, that trick doesn't always work. This plant grows where it wants to, and I do my best to prune it and give as much direction as I can. It doesn't need as much care from me anymore, as it's becoming what it was born to be. Nature and nurture push and pull, and I pray my plant grows as tall as possible.

The plant bears the most beautiful fruit as a sign of my care and the outside forces that cooperated in harmony. I cherish the summer it was mine and I care for it as long as it lets me.

Until the plant itself goes to seed.

Dirty Work

{and it's done dirt cheap!}
There seemed to be more dirt on Nora's face than in the garden, but summer planting is done!

We spent a long afternoon last week plunking seeds into the ground and patting soil at the base of tomato plants. Booms of thunder rang in our ears, so we hunkered over and worked quickly. We finished just in time and were left with hope in this little patch of land. I say little, but I don't think it's appropriate anymore. This year we stretched our growing area into 1,120 square feet... the size of a very nice home.

The idea to stretch our space was born when I couldn't decide between tomato varieties. I came home with 20 total, a pack each of Bradley, Cherokee Purple, Early Girl, Arkansas Traveler, and Celebrity. I knew I needed three rows to make this work, so we tacked a few feet onto the plan. We also needed another row for the four varieties of peppers I grabbed, so another few feet were penciled for that, too. Then I needed a couple more feet for the sack of purple hull peas Jonathan picked up at the farm store. We're adding this new crop for Jonathan's mom. She's looking forward to shelling them with the kids, and we'll try them to see if our tastes have changed... maybe.

When the tiller was shut off, more than a thousand square feet of turned soil lay waiting for work. We dug rows, filled them with compost, and got to planting. Nora and Owen happily took charge of the green bean row. I asked Owen to push two seeds into holes six inches apart. He somehow knew just what that meant, and told his sister to stay in front of him. Back and forth they went, leapfrogging down the row until it was done.

In honor of your curiosity and the fact that I can't remember anything, here's what's growing in my backyard: one row of cucumbers {two different types}, one row of bush beans, one row of Clemson Spineless okra seeds saved from last year's crop, poblano peppers, jalapeño peppers, and two colors of bell peppers, the aforementioned tomato forest, two rows of various sunflower types, and those gross unique-tasting purple hulls.

In past years April flooding meant planting in a straight-up mud pit, but this year was different. The soil was easy to work, and it smelled rich and full of life. Planting day also coincided with the full moon and was followed by a day of rain with nitrogen-heavy lightning. It's now one week post-planting and there's new life sprouting all over the place. I have a good feeling about this garden, y'all. Keep watching this space to see if my predictions come true.

{Yes, these are bean seeds and pea sprouts, but you still get the idea, right?}
If a fruitful season follows, you can have all the purple hulls peas you want!

Are you still considering what to plant for summer? If so, I have a handy-dandy suggestion list for you. If you've already planted, please jump in the comments and let me know what you've got growing. I love a good garden talk.

Best I Ever Grew

As I was snacking on a store-bought pepper this weekend, I realized it's time to get my rear in gear.

Saturday marked Earth Day. In the past we celebrated the big mound of dirt beneath us by planting various veggies in our yard, but we've since learned it's best to wait until May. Still, it's prime planning time. I've already amassed a collection of seed packets, but I've yet to sketch out my garden and prep the perfect soil.

When brainstorming a topic for today, I thought of the how-to-start-a-garden post I wrote last year. While all that information remains true {and do click on that if you're thinking of growing your own}, today I want to share my five favorite crops to grow. Read on to see which varieties I recommend for my area and have a lovely Monday. I'm off to start measuring, figuring, writing, erasing, and writing some more... Good thing I have a fourth-grade math whiz to help.

1. Clemson Spineless Okra: If you live in the south, you've heard this name. This is one crop I've planted every year, and with good reason. It loves the heat, can stand a drought, and the seeds are super easy to collect. I have continued the same crop for years and I have a bag full of seeds waiting to go in the ground. Also, it's delicious. If you cut it at its perfect length {that's about six inches, please stay away from those too-long okra pods}, it's tender and delicious. It also freezes easily.
   
   
2. Burpless Beauty Cucumber: For a few years into my gardening experience, I hated growing cucumbers. I've always loved to eat them and although I could grow them by the pound, every single one tasted bitter. Then I realized that was a thing. I started testing out the varieties bred to be resistant to bitterness, and this one is delicious. I could eat a plate of these with ranch dip for every meal, and I get pretty close during the month of July. My mouth is watering. Seriously.
   
   
3. Early Girl Tomato: Believe when I say I've experimented in the tomato department. {Honorable mentions go to the deep, earthy flavors of Cherokee Purple and the enormous Big Boy.} I still have plenty on my to-grow list, but Early Girl gets the top spot. As the name suggests, these are the first to fruit, the last to stop, and the most bug and disease-resistant variety I have ever grown. Even when the tall plants give in to the August heat, little green tomatoes are still everywhere. I will never not grow these.
   
   
4. Super Sugar Snap Pea: I have only planted this cool-season vegetable once, but once was enough to win me over. I think maybe one basket full of these babies made it into the house. The rest of the harvests went straight from the vine into my mouth. They are as sweet as candy, but oddly enough.. still vegetables. They were also extremely easy to grow from seed. I planted in March and munched in May.
   
   
5. Allstar Strawberry: My blog records show the strawberry patch was started in 2012. Since that initial planting, there are still baby berries of this variety growing amid the weeds. I didn't know whether the patch was alive after our not-so-cold winter, but apparently it went to sleep and woke up just fine. This variety is not an all-summer type, but the berries are big and better than any other I've tasted. Trust me, I am a strawberry connoisseur.

Nora would like to add broccoli to this list, and I'd also like to add the Jubilee Watermelon that grew beautifully despite the bugs, but ended as a midnight snack for sneaky raccoons.

Now it's your turn! What backyard crop variety do you think I should add to my repertoire? I'd like to try some new things this year, so jump in the comments and let me know!

Foodie Friday // Garden Update

The lovely ladies at Arkansas Women Bloggers host a weekly feature called Foodie Friday, in which local writers share recipes.

And would you believe I was asked to participate?? Debbie is likely unaware of how little I know when it comes to the kitchen, and I doubt she wanted a recipe for thawing nuggets or stirring mac and cheese. She had a motive, though. July's Foodie Friday theme is "eating our gardens" and she knew my thumb is as green as my culinary skills. I accepted, then turned right to my husband for help. We decided to share his delicious homegrown stir-fry, and used a version that featured produce from all over our town. You can read my narrative and his recipe on their site today.

Click HERE to read the post, leave a nice comment, then give it a whirl for dinner tonight. If you have a bag of rice, soy sauce, and some form of veggies and protein on hand, you're good to go. Kids can pick around what they don't like, and they'll probably accidentally eat a vegetable or two. Bon appetit, y'all!

GARDEN UPDATE // This particular harvest season has come with plenty of help, even if the "help" consists of sprinkling dirt on everything. Nora loves searching the plants to fill her basket and counting how many sunflowers are open. The weeds are back with a vengeance and the excruciatingly hot afternoons don't exactly make garden labor inviting. She doesn't mind, though. She thinks her garden is beautiful, and so do I.

With late summer does come new trouble, though. We have hordes of stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs on the tomatoes and they're starting to invade the nearby cucumbers. We have tried various methods, but we are still knee-deep in battle. Trust me, I'd love to share these vegetables with whichever humans {and chickens} can appreciate them, but I hate sharing with bugs. We carry on, though. I'll shudder when I see them, ask Jonathan to remove them, and pick tomatoes like nothing happened. It's easiest this way.

That's your official garden update. Everything is overgrown, leggy, and maybe a bit past its prime, but the bounty keeps coming. How does your garden grow? More importantly, how are you using your garden this season? I showed you my recipe, now show me yours. Seriously, leave me tips in the comments. Share recipes to use up tomatoes, pickling ideas, and maybe even a salsa or two. Don't be shy, show me what you've got!

Have a great weekend, y'all. Get dirty!

Backyard Beauty

The garden in our back yard is getting good, y'all.

The long row of cucumbers has each of my kids pacing, lifting all the leaves to see if they can spy the biggest one. The sunflowers are opening up and turning their faces toward the light. The tomato rows are full and we've already sliced up a few to enjoy that first homegrown bite {though the cherry tomatoes can't seem to make it indoors}. It's a gorgeous garden year at the Bauer House. We're still battling weeds and cursing worms, but this is the month we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Aside from filling my vegetable crisper {and my parents' and in-laws' crispers} with fresh cucumbers, this year's garden has done wonders for my well-being. I know it's a million degrees out, but as the sun starts to dip behind the trees, we make our way outside. The breeze blows the sunflower heads and Nora's skirt, and I like to stand back and soak in the view. This is basically a picture of all my favorite things:

Walking up and down the semi-symmetrical rows brings a certain calm, and all the tension that had built up during the day melts. As I bend down to pull weeds, I may spot the first okra pod growing. When I lean over to snatch a ripening tomato, I'll see a bunch of jalapenos ready to be sliced and pickled. There is joy in gardening, and I am thrilled to have a family that delights in it beside me.

Nora's quickly become a gardening expert, always by my side and eager to pick what she sees {ready or not}. Most nights, however, I'll look up from the garden and see a couple of boys through the back door, trying to decide whether the garden is worth trading video games for heat. It usually is. Last night I had Owen in the chicken coop collecting eggs and Nathan studying the row of okra he planted himself. Nora showed off her harvest and then the three decided to feed half of it to the chickens. Lucky girls.

When Owen found a cucumber we missed, you would have thought he won the lottery. He kept asking if he did a good job, and I told him as many times as he wanted to hear it. I know my garden is not much compared to others, and may not be as neat and lush as I want, but it's ours. We did this with our hands, and to me that's perfect. The heat and bugs and age of the plants will soon turn this garden into a crispier version, but it's a sight to see today.

Now if you will excuse me, I want to get out and soak up some sanity before the bees get to work. How does your garden grow?
PS: Let me know if you live nearby and want tomatoes or cucumbers. Seriously. Have a great weekend, y'all. Get dirty!

In The Garden: June

June at my house means extra chores, like keeping the grass out of the beans and the worms out of the tomatoes.

Unfortunately this June the fiery gates of Hell decided to open a little earlier than normal. This weekend was a scorcher, but if we want some veggies out of our backyard, we have to roll up our sleeves {and also maybe wait until the sun goes down each night}. Whatever works to pave the way for a July of tomato-covered counter tops.

The worst garden chore we've faced this season is keeping the weeds and grass off of everything. Last time I checked the grass stopped growing at triple-digits, but we are mowing on a less-than-weekly basis and I swear the weeds reproduce over night. As you can see in the image above, Jonathan spent his Saturday morning off work working even harder to fix this problem {he even made room to plant another row of beans and okra}. Unfortunately, I still haven't found a way to force convince my children weeding is fun.

I do have help in the work of tomato spotting, though. Every time Nora is released into the backyard, she heads to the tomato rows to see how many new babies she can find. She doesn't discriminate, either - from the teeny tiny green cherries to the hefty heirlooms. Every single find elicits a squeal and a quick pet. I constantly remind her that we don't pick tomatoes until they're red, and she constantly reminds me she's just hugging her buddy.

This hotter than normal summer will probably mean more watering than years past {only once or twice a summer}, but crops like the okra and peppers live for the days that could fry an egg in the chicken coop. As long as we keep water on the cucumbers and an eye out for spontaneously exploding tomatoes, I don't think this weather will be a big problem.

Time will tell, but in a few weeks I should be sharing my harvest photos and begging nearby readers to take some off my hands. Hopefully that will be the case rather than a square of scorched soil. So how does your garden grow? Have you picked anything yet? Have you touched metal gardening tools with your bare hands and lived to tell the tale?

Happy Monday, y'all. Be careful out there!

Summer Planting

"Our backyard smells like honeysuckle with a hint of cow poop."

There's no better opener for this post than the words Nathan muttered as he was spreading compost and poking seed holes. The weather was clear and warm last week, and we finally got our plant purchases into the ground. With Jonathan at the tiller and me leading a three-man team of child laborers, our work went fast. Team work makes the dream work, even if there are a handful of sunflower seeds planted in every row {see background of middle photo}.

{Nora wants you to notice her pea plants are now bigger than her. Be proud.}
We started late Wednesday with knees in the dirt and a plan in my hand. I planted two rows that held seven well-spaced tomatoes each and a row with ten pepper plants. This isn't much different than what we did last year, and if all goes well I will be happy to share. To give me a little more room to work with, Jonathan grew the garden to a 25x30-foot space. After a bit of back-breaking grass pulling, the rows were ready.

Nora, ever excited, grabbed the first packet she saw and began tearing at them with her pearly whites. "MOM! I want to plant my sunshine seeds!" She learned a lesson in patience, but I eventually showed her how to push the seeds into place. {I simply went behind her to fix the holes that held 15 extra.} Once she had the sunflower seeds patted in, her brothers joined the fun. I lined all three up and had them choose one veggie to plant. Owen jumped on his beloved cucumbers, Nathan grabbed the one and only vegetable he likes {okra}, and Nora rifled through the packets until she proudly exclaimed: "I WANT THE BEANS!"

One by one I took a kid and delivered instructions. I used my hands to show Nathan how far apart to plant the okra, and he answered, "Oh, so about a foot and a half." I looked at him sideways, wondered when he became an adult, and moved on to the son who was forming a mountain of seeds. Once I got Owen straightened out, his brother told him what compost was made of and I lost him. We carried on. Nora June, standing at the back of the garden in her rainbow dress, asked for her turn approximately 65 times. She clutched the seed packet tightly until it was bean time. She carefully placed each seed and told it to do a good job becoming a bean. I think we'll have a bumper crop this year, y'all. A lot of love {and a little bit of cow poop} went into this garden.

There you have it folks, summer planting is a wrap and now we kick back and watch it grow. Once things get moving, I'll be back with an update. Have you done your summer planting yet? Tell me what's growing in your garden and we'll chat in the comments. Happy Monday, y'all!

Shopping Spree

I'm not much for stacking shoe boxes at the register, but give me cash and a row of greenhouses and I'll be good to go.

I've shared repeatedly that my favorite kind of shopping leaves me smelling like tomato plants, and that day arrived on a sunny Saturday. We loaded the kids and I tried to contain my giddiness. The local nursery is conveniently located about one mile from my house and greets its visitors with beautifully kept flowers, veggies, trees, baskets, and anything else your green thumb desires. My wandering eyes could devote days to each section, but I was on a mission.

I was so proud when Owen rushed ahead and stopped at the peppers to ID them. Good man, that Owen. I grabbed a couple of bell packs, my tried-and-true jalapenos, and a giant jalapeno type Jonathan wants to use for stuffing. I filled a portion of my flat and turned to the tomatoes. As I ran my fingers delicately across their leafy tops, their scent filled the air and took me to my happy place. Hey, you have handbags. I have vegetables. I chose four varieties, my favorite Early Girl and Super Fantastic, plus a cherry and a new-to-me heirloom called Homestead. My current garden sketch has room for 8-10 tomato plants. That sketch may grow.

While I could idle away hours sniffing plants and whatnot, the best part of this trip is enjoying it with my family. We're only there for a half hour, but it signals the start of a season in the dirt and opportunity to talk about where our food begins. They may not always ask me to read the tomato tags, so I'll do my best to educate them while I can. I caught Nathan reading to his brother about the herbs, explaining the process of using dill to pickle. I'm telling you, the summer plant shopping spree is an experience.

As for my daughter, who had big plans for pink flowers, she changed her mind when she spotted a play house. This house, decked with overflowing window boxes, came with a full kitchen and plenty of plastic food. We didn't have to worry about Nora while shopping, and we didn't have to buy any additional pink flowers.

We did, however, have to physically remove her to go home.

So ends another trip to the nursery to give me the tomato high I crave each spring. Have you gotten plants for your garden yet? If so, jump in the comments to let me know what varieties you have sitting on your kitchen table, or share your wish list. If you ever need a shopping buddy, I'm available. Happy Hump Day, y'all!