We have a garden!!

It's been raining all week -- or at least enough that it feels like it's been raining all week and enough that I don't think I made it down to the garden more than once.

Wow! This afternoon when I got out there for a few minutes, I was delighted to find not just sprouts, but beautiful, deep-green, thriving seedlings growing in our garden -- the garden that I planted!!

I was so excited that I did a little dance of joy!

I very much intended to have a beautiful garden this year, but when I planted all the various seeds, I really wasn't convinced that it could actually happen.

I mean I know that's how it's supposed to work...

seeds + soil + water + sun = plants

...but I just didn't really believe that it was ever going to happen on my watch.

I have tried so many times over the years to grow various things from seed and so many times never made it past the sprout stage.

But today, in our garden, I saw healthy sunflower and morning glory seedlings, and lots of green onion shoots, and potato seedlings, tomato plants (though they are looking a little sad after weeks of neglect followed by transplant), wax been sprouts, and many white strawberries where blossoms were just a couple of weeks ago.

And speaking of blossoms...I had no idea that blackberries have beautiful blossoms and that they are in bloom right now.

I mean, yes, once again, I knew the natural progression from bud to berry but I have never seen blackberry blossoms before and had no idea that they are so beautiful!

It was really a treat to be in the garden alone today to soak up all that is happening.

I am very much creating our garden with our children in mind and I love sharing my love of gardening with them. But it is also SO nice to get into the garden without them once or twice a week.

John was home from work today to attend Lily's birthday party at school. It was so wonderful to have him with us. To know that he was inside while Quinn was napping and Lily was relaxing with her favorite shows, and that I could take my time and savor the silence and beauty of the garden.

It was in that silent space that I was hit with another wave of creative energy and ran up to the house to get pumpkin seeds to plant.

I'm not sure that the soil was properly prepared or that my "hills" were actually hills, but I feel very confident that at least a few pumpkin plants will sprout and grow and thrive and provide us wonderful fruit to savor at the end of the growing season!

I also thought of a fun art project to do with Lily - drawing pictures to label the various rows of seeds that we have planted, which we worked on later this afternoon.

She drew pictures and the first letter of the plant on index cards (R = Raspberries, pictured below), which we taped to wooden garden stakes that I had picked up at Agway a couple of weeks ago. Then we slid a plastic zip lock bag over the top of them to protect them from the rain.



When we finished that I made a quick sketch of the garden so Lily and John could match the correct pictures up with the correct rows and then John and Lil headed out to the garden!









I think Lily enjoyed her time in the garden this afternoon just as much as I did.