gardens

When Dan's grandmother Violet was alive and living in Oklahoma, we would send letters back and forth very occasionally, and I always thought it was funny that what she wrote about most in her letters was her garden. She would fill me in on everything she had planted, how it was growing, and how the weather was. I always figured it was because she didn't know what else to write about. Now that I am getting older I am starting to understand why she wrote about her garden. It's easy to get slightly crazed and obsessive about these things, and its fun to stick stuff in the ground and see what happens. Today Duncan helped me put in some tomato plants. We also have spinach, peas and beans that we are waiting on to see if they will sprout. I still want to get some peppers and some grape tomatos in. And I want to have a pumpkin this year, but I would have to plant it on the other side of the yard and I'm not sure it would get enough sun. Olivia helped me plant some dahlias, petunias and marigolds too. There are few sunflower sprouts left over from last year, and the raspberries are coming back too. We replanted them two years ago, and it has taken a while for them to get going again. Oh, and the oak tree! When Will was a baby, we planted a little oak tree that was just as tall as he was. Now, it is over 10 feet tall, and even though it is still very skinny, it is starting to look like a real tree. You can even sit in its shade! It will be sad if we move away and have to leave it here. It came from the oak tree in my mom's yard, and in another 10 years, it will give some great shade to our west-facing back patio.