We expanded our garden a bit this year. This picture was taken about a month ago when everything was still green and flourishing.
I planted tomatoes, broccoli, zucchini, spaghetti squash, green beans, yellow beans, swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, cucumber, onions, eggplant, green peppers, yellow peppers, and red peppers, and I made two unsuccessful attempts at planting cauliflower. I say unsuccessful because the first time I bought cauliflower plants, they turned out to be collard greens. So I tried a second time. I bought what was labeled as “self-blanching cauliflower” and watched with anticipation as they grew into nice large heads. I cut one off and started peeling back the leaves. And I peeled back more leaves…and more leaves. I had grown four beautiful heads of cabbage.
Oh well. We have had some tasty cabbage dishes, which we never would have tried had I not planted so much “cauliflower”.
I have had some more happy little garden helpers. They have brought their sand buckets over to collect the harvest, and love to take it in the house and carefully place everything on the kitchen table. One of their favorite ways to help in the garden is munching on leaves or cherry tomatoes. Even Lana takes bites and then spits them out in the grass. If you look carefully at these photos, you might see some tiny trails of green juice on their cute little cheeks.
The kids also helped me make zucchini bread at least once a week while it was coming in. The girls especially really love to help me cook. And it provides some minutes of peace where there might have otherwise been a degree of contention.
