Gardening With the Best

This year we planted our garden over at my Mom and Dad’s house.  When we moved here we thought we would get to our house in Aurora a couple times a week, but that has been harder to do than we planned.  And Englewood is closer. Then there is the fact that my Dad is a die hard farmer and he still likes to putter around in the dirt a bit!  I’ll probably have my best garden ever under his watchful eye!

One evening we went over and Wally tilled the ground. 

The next morning Dad and I hoed and planted.

Dad put the sprinkler on and the “germinating” began! Then, that night, a big storm ended the germinating!   A few days later I returned with new plants and saw that the hail had left us just a few stems where plants had been!  I also think the wind blew away my seed because the lettuce, carrots and spinach hardly had anything come up.  On Father’s Day when we all gathered at Dad’s, it was a nice surprise to see that the beans had grown several inches tall already!  I could not believe it!  Maybe beans love 100* plus heat!

 
We had intended to put in corn in the patch of dirt behind Dad’s garage but we had problems with our tiller and the parts were on back order…we just got them in this week.  So this could be the first year Dad does not have his tall corn growing for all the neighbors to envy!  I know Dad is moving slower these days and he gets tired out. It was hot the day we planted and he probably took a good nap when I left. But I loved listening to Dad as we worked. He talked of his farming days, a couple childhood memories, and of course every conversation turns to something about the Lord! 

Besides the tiller and hoe, these are my Dad’s tools for gardening. 

 

The string used to be on two pieces of rebar…when Dad got a new grill, the old handles replaced the rebar. Its quite easy to roll out the string and mark the row with those nice handles!

 

 

And I could not believe Dad still had these two orange shovels…I remember those from when I was growing up!

 

 

 

Yesterday morning I went over and put in a second planting of lettuce and spinach. I forgot the camera but things are looking pretty good. The beans are so full I can hardly wait to pick and eat them!  And Dad actually left a few weeds for me to pull!