A Time for Planting...

If anyone was wondering where I've been for the past week, I've been outside.  My time on the computer has been limited to keeping up my calorie count log (hey, I gained TEN pounds from being pregnant only three months...if I don't get that under control, I'm going to get really fat next time around!), but all the other spare time has been devoted to breaking the sod out of the garden, shaking off the dirt, bagging it all up, getting rid of the bags...and getting the dirt ready to plant.

I know I've posted a few times about the garden before, but this time I get to report that the garden bed has been prepared and we have herbs, tomatoes, green beans, and cucumbers planted.  Hopefully this weekend I'll add some peppers, four more tomato plants, and a zucchini plant.  You'll notice it's only one zucchini plant.  I think that's pretty much all I can keep up with: as Garrison Keilor notes, if you want decent-sized zucchini, you have to reach for the blossom.  If you're any later than that, you end up with a monster thing that resembles a watermelon more than a squash.

As I was out prepping the bed for planting seeds, I realized that this is the biggest vegetable garden I've ever been able to plant.  It's the first one big enough to need proper furrows.  It's the first one I might be able to grow a whole variety of things I've never had room for before like potatoes and carrots.  In the back of my brain, I remember how much work it's going to be to keep this garden up - weed it, make sure the ground stays at the proper moisture level, trouble-shoot whatever bugs or diseases pop up, harvest the vegetables at the right time, preserve whatever we can't eat - but at the moment I'm getting ready to plant the seeds I'm unusually extravagant.  Sure, I'll get myself into this: because it's so exciting to see all those vegetable seedlings going into the ground and I'm looking forward to the crop.

It helps that Dad Turner is more excited than I am.  He's bringing in plants faster than I can get the spots ready for planting and between him and Ben it's difficult not to get enthusiastic about the summer vegetable crop.

Gotta go.  Our beautiful warm sunshine is drying out the dirt and if we want those seeds to sprout, I'd better go water them.