diggin' in the dirt

We LOVE great-grandpa!
Every time we visit my grandparents they have a garden full of wonderful things to eat. My kids love searching for all sorts of creepy crawly creatures and crunching on veggies pulled straight from the earth.
He is so patient with them and loves to watch their reaction once he unearths each burried treasure. I love watching them too...and I love gardens.
(although ours is far from what i would expect a good garden to look like)

Last year we spent hundreds of dollars planting a garden with 19 variety's of veggies and 5 varieties of fruits and 7 different herbs. We weeded and watered everyday and all we reaped were about 45 cherry tomatoes and 2 dozen peaches. It was a bust. I was BEYOND frustrated and vowed I would never do it again. Then I remembered where we were this time last year. Chad was keeled over in a hospital bed with gallstones and pancreatitis. Hospital bills were racking up by the 10's of thousands. I thought to myself how can I not plant a garden. My family needs this. I started collecting gardening magazines at the checkout stand. I watched Food Inc.(I agree with MOST of it), read a lot of nutrition articles and just generally feel the need to eat better. So here I am planting another set of crops this year. Only I have scaled back a lot.

This years garden menu:
strawberries
peaches
apples
grapes
tomatoes
Italian flat leaf parsley
lemon thyme
zucchini

I was surprised at how many crops weathered the long winter without any attention.
The only new crops this year will be fresh tomato plants (since that's all that I could get to grow last year), grapes (a mothers day gift from chad), and zucchini (from our neighbor). KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED. Here we go.