It's Working!!!

I always had my doubts that the plants in our garden would grow. Insert seed, cover with dirt and voila, you've got food! -- it seemed like some sort of magic that had to be smoke and mirrors. I wanted to put all of my faith into it and believe, believe that it would work, and deep down I did but I still had my doubts. I didn't want to find out that vegetable magic was a bit like the Christmas Magic of Santa Claus. And it's not! Look at our garden -- it's a wonderful true bit of sorcery!!!Everything is HUGE and blooming or fruiting! Cucumber blossoms,tomato blossoms AND fruit,raspberries (the bees love them!),adorable string bean babies,and eggplant and pepper blossoms, too. The strawberry plants are putting out runners, all the squash varieties are expanding mightily, the corn is getting high (as an elephant's eye), and the tomato vines are becoming unimaginably HUGE -- I need taller stakes and more cages! But I'm especially proud of this one, that I started from seed:Tomato plants have a smell that takes me back to my mom's garden of my youth. I wasn't really too interested in it then -- I mean, what kid likes to eat vegetables? But now I'm glad I have such an experienced gardener to call on for advice.

Here's something else -- today Dave and I built our own compost bin! OK so it's not beautiful, and a pack of cub scouts could probably do a more symmetrical job, but it's functional and made of 100% re-purposed materials (except for the nails). I just hope that it doesn't attract the bears. Because bears are not a make-believe boogey man, I've seen them here on more than one occasion.