Fegles Five: My Garden

My vegetable garden was such a quiet, happy retreat this year. And let's just get this out of the way, I clearly have a ridiculous love for growing produce, because too many photos are to follow. ;)

Many mornings this summer, after the kids and I had done our morning routine, I'd walk out to the garden and check on everything. I'd often take my clippers and basket and gather up some cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, cabbage or kale. We ate soooo many cucumbers as snacks. It was a great year for them. Then in the evenings, when the sun was falling behind the oak trees, I'd often go back out there with a cup of tea and just spend time walking around, while the kids rode bikes.

My garden is winding down now as we've entered fall, and it has transitioned to pumpkins, squash and gourds. Even though all the greens are dying back and it isn't as lovely as it once was, I still love wandering out there. Life has gotten so busy with school and our normal school-year-routine, though, that I'm not out there as often these days.

I was most excited about growing buttercup squash this year, at the recommendation of a friend, but I haven't tried one yet. I think they're really cute and can't wait to break into one and roast it with fresh herbs, once I'm sure they're ripe. :)

Selah and I are growing these mini egg gourds; we're going to make Christmas ornaments with them. They need to dry on the vine first, and then we'll read up on how to work with them.

Butternut squash are always a favorite around here. Just cube them up, oil them in a roasting dish, sprinkle herbs from the garden on top, salt and pepper and roast them for 35 mins. Yum!!

Jude's sweet corn got huge!

White pumpkins are sprinkled all over the house... (fun fact, Josh designed & built this bookcase after we bought our very first house, 14 years ago.)

Josh helped me work on tomatoes one night when it started to rain. That's not his favorite thing to do, in fact gardening is not on his list of fun things to do, at all. ;) But because he loves me so much, and knows I love gardening, he helps me. He washed everything so that I could make pizza sauce, and blend up tomatoes to freeze for soups and stews and spaghetti sauce.

This photo was from back in August, when my garden was only half the size it grew to.

Ta-da! Food. ;) These are the kid's garden rows in front of me.

Ben, looking for cucumbers to eat. ;)

Sometimes we would find veggies hiding under big leaves, that got much bigger than they should have, so we would feed them to the chickens. :)

I always think the purple cabbage have the most beautiful lines.

Look at this beautiful corn Jude grew! We cooked it, but it didn't taste as good as it looked. Maybe it's meant to just be decorative? Or was it suppose to be popcorn? We aren't sure. We found some of my Granddad's old seeds and planted them, not quite sure of what we'd get, but this sure was a fun surprise to peel back the husk and see.

Our cantaloupe this year were the best cantaloupe I've ever tasted!

Josh and I were on a big salad kick in July when we had lettuce coming out of our ears.

You know you've crossed over into "crazy garden lady"when your kid takes a picture of you with your veggies and then you actually post the picture on your blog. Oh dear.

But there's something so satisfying about it all. And being closer to the rhythms of nature is so calming. I feel like the more time I spend outside the more my eyes are open to God's incredibly brilliant designs. Almost like there's this whole world out there that we can easily pass by in our rushing, or we can slow down and see God's fingerprints and genius, and calling out to us, everywhere. It makes me think of Romans 1.