Our Garden Saga, part 2

A partial victory?

Well, I thought I'd let you all know that patience & perserverence can pay off. I've been plugging away & working hard in the garden for the past few weeks, and FINALLY we're seeing some signs of progress. To be honest, the only reason I've kept it up is because we're supposed to TRY to be self-sufficient, right? Like my friend Cara commented on my first garden post- "Fortunately the prophet only said to plant a garden, not necessarily harvest it." So I've figured that I'm getting points in the good book whether it's successful or not. And now it looks like we may get a vegetable or 2 out of this venture, after all.

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At first it was 1 step forward, 2 steps back, but now we've advanced to 2 steps forward, just 1 step back. My little gardens have survived all sorts of hardships. Mice (the original culprits that ate our seedlings), rats, windstorms that literally tore plants out of the ground, bugs, and dogs have all played a part in my garden stresses. However, after all this we've finally got blossoms on several plants and have even been able to taste the fruits (or radishes) of our labors.

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Unfortunately, the watermelons that we planted in the wells of our mulberry trees seem to be cursed no matter what I do. They've been dug up by the dogs, smashed by falling limbs, and just plain dried up and quit. Amazingly, I keep finding seedlings that are trying to grow, so we'll see if they ever make it.

Andrew was very upset that we ate squash & zucchini from his parent's garden last week, while all we have is greenery. I keep having to remind him that we started completely over weeks late in the season. But at least he can't call it my "rock garden" anymore! Since we re-planted it flood-style this time, seeds floated everywhere and we're not even sure what's what. We've got clumps of plants in places, and completely naked dirt in others. Oh well. It'll be part of the excitement to see what comes up where, I guess.

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We harvested our radishes yesterday. These and the carrots are the only plants that have survived every setback and have stayed healthy since our first attempt at gardening. I didn't want to rip them up, but my poor little "plants that could" had become infested with aphids, and I didn't want to mess with pesticides again. I decided to finally put them out of their misery (and mine) and pull them up. Emma had such a good time at dinner last night eating something out of our very own garden. She kept telling me "This is just so fantastic!" So I'd say my sweat & heartache has counted for something at last!

Hopefully the carrots will do as well as the radishes did.

So, judging by the blossoms and the look of the plants, we should be seeing some real live vegetables within a week or so. The canteloupes that have miraculously come up even though we never re-planted them will take longer, but that's the one plant that I'm most excited for. To be able to grow a good canteloupe seems like a definite stamp of success on our first summer of gardening. We'll see, and we'll keep you posted!