Growing Like Gang Busters!

I bet you were all wondering when I would post an update on our garden. Well, the wait is over! You can all breathe a deep sigh of relief... :-)

Three years ago, right after we bought this house, I planted a fruit tree in a corner of the backyard. I knew it would take a while before it started bearing fruit, so I was patient. Summer after summer went by, and I started to get frustrated. I was thrilled when this summer, the fruit tree got flowers on it. It had never done that before, so I was sure it must have meant something important! Here's what the tree looked like on April 1.

Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the date I took the picture, and considered the possibility that my fruit tree was playing a joke on me. The tree got only 3 pieces of fruit that looked like peaches. But a few weeks later I went out to the tree and all 3 pieces were still very small, and were completely shriveled up. The tree never produced any more fruit. And I never gave it another thought, until today. Hector was mowing the lawn, and I heard the lawnmower stop all of a sudden. He came into the house and said "Guess what I found?" And from behind his back he pulled out a huge peach! "No way" I yelled! We went out to the tree and it is, in fact, producing fruit. Avery ate 2 peaches by herself. They were SO good and really sweet! There's only about 6 more peaches on the tree, but still, it's something!

I think seeing Avery's excitement was the best part of it all. As for the rest of my garden, this time last year, my garden was completely dead. So, a few weeks ago when I noticed that everything in my garden was starting to turn brown, I assumed that everything was about to die. I stopped watering the garden and waited. I was really looking forward to digging up everything after it died, so that I could start my winter garden. And then the rain came... It rained, and rained, and rained some more. It rained for 5 days straight. That's when I posted on here that I was so bummed about not being able to do anything the week before school started with the kids. Yeah, well my garden must have got the message that it was not time to die after all, because everything started growing again (even the crepe myrtle that Hector dug up back in March and we thought he had killed, it came back up!). Today, I picked 20 pieces of okra, 30 jalapenos, a cantaloupe, 2 cucumbers, a bell pepper, 1 Roma tomato, 3 peaches, and 9 grape tomatoes. So far we have harvested 5 cantaloupes, and there are several more growing in the garden. I have 3 canning jars full of pickled jalapenos, and another 25 jars of every kind of pickle you can imagine that I made from the cucumbers. I can't even keep up with everything, it's all growing so fast. I don't know what was in that rain, but it's crazy, I tell you. And I'm loving every minute of it.

08/30/08: Our very overgrown garden (above) and one of our cantaloupes (below)

I could put a bunch of quotes here from famous gardeners, about gardening and it's rewards, or how life relates to gardening, or how much joy one can get from gardening... But I won't... Instead, I will leave you all with one of my own quotes that I made to Avery this morning, and her response.

Patty: "Everything in our garden is growing like gang busters!"

Avery: "Yeah, and it all tastes really good too!"