Who Has Time to Blog - I've Been Gardening!

Well, the lettuce is by far my greatest gardening success - ever!  I gave away three bags Tuesday morning to my breakfast friends - and that was after eating salad Monday evening and saving some leaves for Paul's sandwiches this week.  My brother dashed over this noon to get lettuce for BLT's, we ate salad for dinner, and I sent him home with a bagful after that.  There's still more - and I planted a lettuce mix in another raised bed this week, expecting the current crop to bolt any day, and leave me lettuce-less for a while.  While I don't think the lettuce has paid for the entire gardening project, it's certainly redeeming the expenditures.   And I'm already planning to grow more in the cold frame in the fall and next winter. 

We made two more raised beds, bringing my gardening space to 64 square feet.  The zinnias, collards, dill, chives and cilantro I started from seed survived the transplanting, but the sunflowers look pathetic, so I think I"ll have to buy a few of them to add to the tomato and zucchini plants I got at the nursery. 

I planted okra which sprouted quickly - but it looks kind of straggly.  Since I've never ever seen it growing I don't know quite what to expect, but I don't think this is it.  But hey, how much okra can a couple of Yankees eat, anyway!  The collards seem prolific - I'll have to figure out how Miss Idella Rawls, from the Baptist Church in Pearlington, Mississippi fixed them for the meal she served to volunteers and neighbors alike when we were there a year ago.  I probably can't even comprehend how much grease it took to make them so yummy. But we like them sauted them with a little olive oil and garlic, and I have a meatloaf recipe that uses the leaves as a wrapper like pigs in the blanket and cooks in the crockpot.  So I should be able to keep up with the collard greens. 

My brother brought over a barrel, went to the hardware store for the plumbing fixtures needed, and even drilled the hole and installed the spigot for a rain barrel by the back of our house.  A couple days later, it started to rain and I hurried home at lunch time to look in the barrel - it was nearly full!  I almost emptied it onto my plants and seeds by the time it rained again on Monday, filling it to overflowingn once again.  God is an on-time God! 

Are we saving any money?  Doubtful - but the satisfaction of digging in the dirt and even playing in the water from the rain barrel are great blessings to me these days.