Ok, I admit it - I don't have a green thumb. Despite the fact that my grandparents grew a huge, beautiful garden every year. But, the church advises us to grow as much food as we are capable of in our own gardens. We are starting small, but at least I'm trying. I've had a small garden for about 3-4 years now. This morning, I was a good Mormon mom and got my two girls ready to help me pick the carrots. (I was only successful because there was a recent Curious George episode where George plants and picks carrots!) While Emily and Ella each toiled to pick one carrot each, I picked the rest of them. However, Emily WAS VERY proud when she finally got that carrot to come out of the ground! After washing three pairs of shoes, feet and hands, I set about to wash, peel, and cut the carrots. Here's our bounteous harvest. (Plus a couple of cucumbers I picked today.)
Ok, so it's not much. But besides the aforementioned black thumb, my garden is also in the most infertile plot in our whole backyard. I only chose it because I think the previous owners had a shed sitting there and there was no grass growing there. Every year I toss dozens of large rocks out of the area. The ground is also very hard, and the roots struggle to get deep. Also, after planting the seeds (with Scottie's help!), I barely looked at the garden until today. I did get out there twice to weed and thin, but that's all the love it got. So besides all those factors, these carrots thrived and were able go grow. Here they are peeled, with the tops and bottoms chopped off. Ella got a picture of me chopping.
And here's the final result of preparing the soil, planting, weeding, thinning, harvesting, washing, peeling, and chopping. One halfway filled container of carrot sticks and two containers of chopped carrots to freeze and throw in crockpot stews.
The happy result? Emily and Ella couldn't wait to eat the carrot they helped pick! However, they already like carrots. I did make everyone eat a bite of the first cucumber I picked, but despite the fact that it grew in our very own garden, no one liked it. (So much for all the parenting magazines that say if kids help in preparing or growing foods, they'll be more likely to eat them!)
So would anyone like to comment and remind me exactly why all this work was more important than going out and buying a dollar bag of carrots that would yield more carrots and less work?
Ok, so it's not much. But besides the aforementioned black thumb, my garden is also in the most infertile plot in our whole backyard. I only chose it because I think the previous owners had a shed sitting there and there was no grass growing there. Every year I toss dozens of large rocks out of the area. The ground is also very hard, and the roots struggle to get deep. Also, after planting the seeds (with Scottie's help!), I barely looked at the garden until today. I did get out there twice to weed and thin, but that's all the love it got. So besides all those factors, these carrots thrived and were able go grow. Here they are peeled, with the tops and bottoms chopped off. Ella got a picture of me chopping.
And here's the final result of preparing the soil, planting, weeding, thinning, harvesting, washing, peeling, and chopping. One halfway filled container of carrot sticks and two containers of chopped carrots to freeze and throw in crockpot stews.
The happy result? Emily and Ella couldn't wait to eat the carrot they helped pick! However, they already like carrots. I did make everyone eat a bite of the first cucumber I picked, but despite the fact that it grew in our very own garden, no one liked it. (So much for all the parenting magazines that say if kids help in preparing or growing foods, they'll be more likely to eat them!)
So would anyone like to comment and remind me exactly why all this work was more important than going out and buying a dollar bag of carrots that would yield more carrots and less work?
4 comments:
Good question! But the kids know where carrots and cucumbers come from and that counts for something! You obeyed and will be blessed (maybe not in the harvest, but in other ways). The kids are so cute eating their carrots! Thanks for a fun post!
Good job! That's great that you got Emily and Ella to help pick and eat one too. I'm not a green thumb either. I told Dan NO MORE LIVE PLANTS unless he wants to take care of them--I just kill them.
We've had several years of good harvests (despite no gardening knowledge on either our our parts). This year, however, we got washed out right after we planted the seeds. Sure, the ONE time it rains all summer happens to be right after we planted. We ended up replanting much of the garden a few weeks later. Therefore, we didn't have anything to enter in the county fair this year. We did well this year with beans, lettuce, and radishes (as usual - no skill involved there). We've had much less zucchini and cucumbers than usual though. We're not even breaking into church members' vehicles during Sunday School this year to place zucchini inside. Our tomatoes are out there, but not red yet -- and I expect a frost within a week or two. We are going to let our carrots grow a bit longer before picking them. We've got some crook-neck squash and some acorn squash, but not as much as we hoped for. Another problem this year was that I was too busy (lazy?) to rototill and fertilize the garden this year to prepare the soil. We'll try again next year. Glad you're trying though.
Congratulations! Kelsey and I think the carrots look great!
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