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Gardening

In the previous post (Good, Bad, and Ugly) I posted a picture of the pumpkins growing in our front yard. There were two plants, and I assumed that neither one was actually going to produce any good sized pumpkins. Well, the other day as I was walking by I noticed a big green ball amongst all the leaves. I was shocked to discover that it was actually a pumpkin! Yay! I am so glad I decided not to pull those plants up!


Here is part of my garden in the backyard. I thought I would take a picture as reference for next year. I suppose this will probably be extremely boring for most. Sorry. I now have lots of tomato's, but hardly any have turned red. (sniff) In the left front I have planted asparagus which seems to be doing well. But, I also got a few random tomato plants that grew out of nowhere, so I have a great, very crowded tomato/asparagus mix. On the right-hand side in the very back is a beautiful, big sunflower. This was also a surprise. William brought this sunflower start home from school last year. It had been planted in a plastic cup and looked pretty sorry. The scrawny stems were bent over the side of the cup, but I decided to go ahead and try to keep it alive as long as possible. When I planted it, I didn't really expect it to grow, but it actually grew amazingly well! If I had more room I would totally plant more of these. The corn in the back of the garden really is a sorry sight. The cobs are so small - I won't be surprised if we don't get any corn this year - I am so sad!


I planted four pumkin plants in the backyard. Out of all four, this is pretty much the only good-sized pumpkin that came out of them. This is obviously a very different variety than the ones that grew randomly in the front yard.


This is a Blue Hubbard squash hanging on our fence. I do have some great trellis that I intended to put up for these to grow on, but I never got around to it. Oh well, looks like the fence does a fine job of holding up heavy squash!


I think this was my favorite part of the garden this year - my rasperries! They were so big and juicy! With the help of a few extra raspberries from the neighbors (that Thomas surprisingly picked), I was able to make some yummy raspberry jam. I also used these beauties in smoothies and ate them with cream and sugar! Absolutely heavenly!!!


These are not gardening pictures, but I thought I would include them to spice up this page a bit. James decided one day to take his alphabet puzzle outside to put together. I just thought he looked cute all by himself. Maybe he did it to get away from siblings who threatened to take it away from him. Who knows. He loves letters and can name most of them and make their sounds. Just another one of his obsessions.

It's little things like this that cause me to think I will really miss the summer. I have loved being able to spend more time outdoors - and so have the kids. I am definitely not ready for winter yet!