Garden: Week 8

Behold, the garden!  (Needless to say, plans to build a "Garden 2.0" next year are in the works.)

Come, come, look closer.  Nature's beauty to behold.

I was fortunate to catch these squash blooms near their peak.

And not but a day or two later, the flowers are shriveled up, but the beginnings of some tasty squash are left behind.  (If we get a squash from every bloom, we might have enough to send one to each of my followers! Okay, not really, but there's a lot of them.)

And, not to be outdone, some mini-cucumbers.  I'm hoping for full-size as opposed to gherkins, myself.

I can't wait to see how much these young "veggie-lings" grow over the next week, because about the same time these pictures were taken, we put another round of fertilizer - Miracle-Gro Organic (aka dried chicken poop).

You may be wondering, "Dad-E, why do you keep posting pictures of your garden?"

To that I'd say several things:

1.  It'll be neat at the end to be able to put together a stop-motion slide show at the end of the season.

2.  The boys have had fun with it.  They do some watering, and by watering I mean they spray pretty much everything EXCEPT for the garden, including the dog, each other, grass, trees, specific spots of dirt (Bab-E Brother's favorite).  Even if Mom-E and I do most of the watering, it still gets the boys excited and outside.

3.  Life is hectic, and the garden is a good reminder to slow down and admire natural beauty.

4.  There are some good parallels between gardening and parenthood.  It's something that takes time, energy, persistence/dedication, and the opportunity to witness the fruits (or in our case veggies and herbs) of your labor bloom before your eyes (and of course you have to pull out the weeds from time to time.)  I hope my boys will always remember that.

Have a good week,
Busy-Dad-E