Ode to the garden

I was in the midst of typing up a lovely, spiritual post last night about my garden. It was attacked by javelina's last week. Many of the plants were destroyed. We mended the fence, nurtured the plants and it was on its way to a full recovery. I was impressed with my zucchini in particular, which were apparently a favorite of the javelina. Most of the leaves were broken off or trampled, and all the zucchini growing thereon was eaten. Within a few days, my brave zucchini sent out more tender flowers, showing promise of not giving up despite the cruelties they had previously faced. I was totally inspired. Am I like that? When things come along that leave me devastated, how quickly do I take courage and begin again? I'm more of the type of person that licks my wounds first. And I have decided to be more like my zucchini. It's not afraid of anything. Even after being pulled nearly out of the ground, it still decided life was worth living--not just living, thriving.

That's what I was going to write.

But while I was writing, The Hubby said, "Oh, I went out to the garden tonight and the javelina have been in it again." What? no! It was doing so well, and I had great hopes that it would recover! I couldn't wait until morning. We grabbed flashlights and tromped out in the dark of night to survey the damage.

I know it's tacky and cheesy to love my garden so much, but I do. And I wanted to cry when I saw it. Destroyed. I question a recovery this time. Zucchini is completely trampled, as well as the big pumpkin, and the mini pumpkin plant that was threatening to take over my entire garden (as big as it was getting), is gone completely. Gone. Only a few stem nubs are left that, I suppose, were too close to the ground for them to reach. So. sad.

So tonight, humor me as I post lovely "before" pictures of my garden in memorial. Tomorrow, I'm going to take a note from my zucchini: square my shoulders, fix the fence, and go see what deterrents I can get at the store. Maybe there is hope yet for produce this summer. Maybe there's still some time to put out some flowers.

First pumpkin of the season

funny thing about this mini pumpkin plant: we thought it was a cucumber. At least, it was planted in the row with the cucumber. Then one day I realized that it was not a cucumber plant. It looked totally different from the other plants in the row. It put out all these long flowers, but the rest of the cucumber flowers were small petaled. Then this is what started growing there:

see the cute baby pumpkin? It was love at first sight for me. The plant put out so many flowers that I was already dreaming of the pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin stew, pumpkin pancakes, carved pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin!

aren't they cute?

beans in the twilight

one of Dev's favorite chores is to gather the "done peas." (Most of them don't make it back to the house, but that's ok.)

first silk of the corn showing through.

first two tomatoes


The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
~Dorothy Frances Gurney, "Garden Thoughts"