Coming Full Circle

I have not posted anything about my garden in a while. But I wanted you to know that we've had a mini-harvest!

In a way, I feel like the kindergartner proudly wearing his little paper mortarboard, graduating and receiving a tiny rolled up diploma that the teachers made. I mean, come on now, I've seen your blogs. You know who you are. You have enough produce to actually be able to can and store proceeds from your harvest! You are my idols, that's all I can say.

Nevertheless, I am proud. I purchased seed packets and I grew things! Sometimes success depends on how you choose to measure it.

So here's a photo of my colorful little mini-harvest:



The hip of my giant bell pepper is just starting to turn color.


And I must tell you, I never thought my cantaloupe was going to ripen. It hung there and hung there.

Yesterday evening I went out to check it, and it simply broke from the stem into my hand! It's done! I held it up to the sky, and in a deep voice, I announced: "I HAVE CREATED CANTALOUPE!"

This morning I cut it open and we ate it for breakfast. It was gone in 5 minutes flat. My husband said it's the best cantaloupe he's ever tasted. I agreed. We finished it, wiped the juice from our lips, sighed, and then I said, "Three and a half months of daily care to grow it....five minutes to eat it!"


Okay, now for the ugly side of things. Well, I started my new job which took away from my garden tending time. Things kind of slipped a bit here and there.

One of my potted tomatoes was not staked well enough and some of the branches bowed over and one actually broke. It looks a mess, but you know what? The fruit on those bowed and broken branches continues to grow! So, okay, it's not perfect but it still works!



And one tomato plant outgrew its cage and leaned itself right over onto the house. But that plant, and the one next to it never produced a single tomato. Don't know why. Their leaves were plenty happy to grow, but no fruit.


Next year, I hope to do better. This year I began without an inkling of knowledge and just sort of felt my way along. Next year I have bigger plans! Of course, by next spring I also hope to have a precious new baby snuggled in a sling against my chest, who will go outside with me, into the yard, and be with me as my garden is planted and grows.

Sort of like this year.

Kind of an ironic beauty, isn't it? Everything coming full circle like that.
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