Thumb leaning towards green-ish

I was raised by a mother with not one, but two green thumbs.  There may have even been a few greenish fingers in there too, and if it happened to be pea shelling time, that was very literal.  Our garden was a quarter of an acre, and was fueled by 100% people power. Okay, a tractor tilled it up.  But from there on out, the planting, watering, weeding (and weeding and weeding), and of course harvesting, was all done by Mom and us four kids.  A few times we had friends join us for snapping beans - there were bags and bags of them - 8 kids and 2 moms going at it!  Insane.  And then the freezing and canning started.

This may give you some insight into why I feel like gardening is something I must do.  Even if my own personal feelings lean more towards the ambivalent than the passionate.

Adam tests out the dirt in the new garden bed.  He got a bath afterwards.

Aaron built me these gorgeous garden beds.  We had some in our old house too, but with the move in the middle of the summer, and then Adam being born in June last year, the gardens got delayed a bit until this year.

I start out strong - choosing which veggies to plant, buying the seeds, and even making a chart of what will go where.  Leah and I planted those garden beds this year, and it was every bit as picturesque as I'd always imagined - mother and daughter bonding over putting these little capsules of potential into the warm earth.  We quickly decided that beans were a better choice for her first planting experience, rather than lettuce - hence the random lettuce growing on the side of the yard!

Aaron wisely put the garden beds along a sprinkler line, and put new sprinkler heads in so that with a turn of a wheel we could water just the garden beds (not even the whole lawn), and not have to fight the mosquitos to do it.

Oh yeah.. The mosquitos.  Those nasty buggers are one of the reasons for the lackadasical progression of my gardening.  One hand was picking, and the other was smacking and swiping as fast as possible.  Makes you appreciate the "gathering" part of "hunting and gathering" a little more - it becomes a contact sport.

Because the beds are raised, weeds aren't too much of a problem.  When it comes to harvesting...you'd think I'd be a little more excited.  But after the 10th day of having salad twice a day, the enthusiasm, it tends to wain a bit. 

It's too bad that those veggies don't pace themselves out more.  I might be more happy to see them.  But none are more welcome than the snow peas.  Raw or cooked, we eat 'em up!

Adam approves the snow peas.

And the dirt. Again.  But isn't he just ridiculously cute?

And beets!  They are the size of baseballs, or even softballs.

At some point at the beginning of August, Aaron usually accuses me of being a hypothetical gardener and claims that he's doing all the work, and usually he's pretty much right.  So I step up my gardening and try to justify planting another one next year.  As much as I might get tired of the overflow (green beans at least 3 times a week for a month?  Um, SURE!), I love being able to go pick the veggies for dinner.  Plus, the carrots taste WAY better than store-bought.  Next year, I'm trying leeks.  No beets, though.

Maybe.  We'll see how I feel.

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To what degree are you are gardener?  Apathetic, lukewarm, or fired up?