This Week in My Garden :: June 21

 I've never had a garden before - not even really a container garden.  While I've always wanted to and thought it would be fun to grown my own food, I didn't expect the feeling of contentment I'd get from walking among the plants, rubbing their leaves between my fingers - the simple joy of grabbing a bit of soil to see whether tonight I'll water them or whether the rain from a couple days before was enough.  Walking among the beds, I feel grounded.

It's a good thing because there's still a lot of work to be done.  Most of the plants are coming along fine.  We lost one okra plant - it just didn't root.  The big issue now is the basil.  We think it's slugs, and I put out a jar with cornmeal in it to attract them and (as much as I love slugs) kill them before they completely destroy our hopes of a freezer filled with pesto.

And of course, as those who've gardened before know well, I can hardly keep ahead of the weeding.  Even with the few beds we have going, I'm shocked at how fast they spring up.  It doesn't help, I'm sure, that the area between the beds is overrun with weeds.  I'd like to take care of all of those, but the task feels pretty daunting at the moment. So I'm sticking with what's in the beds for now.

Speaking of which, there are still three beds that haven't been prepared - that have been completely overtaken by weeds.

And this weekend, I've got to take a shovel to those.  We still have cucumber seeds and wildflower seeds to plant, and I've gotta get the new basil seedlings in the ground.  I'm hoping I'm not too late with those seeds, but we'll just have to see.  Who doesn't love cucumbers at the end of August?

The chives are blooming gorgeously, and I look for every reason to throw them into whatever I'm cooking.  Eventually I suppose I'll have to figure out how to preserve them because there are certainly more than we'll ever eat.  For now, they're a huge hit with the butterflies and bees.

The blueberry bushes across the lawn from the garden are making precious little berries.  I cannot wait to walk out into the front yard and pick blueberries - cannot wait.  I have to get some flash tape to tie on the bushes so that the birds don't get them before we do.

And the garlic scapes are very near being ready to eat, which I'm super excited for.

I'm so grateful that the previous homeowners planted the garlic, the blueberry bushes, and the chives so that we'd have something ready for harvesting while I wait with baited breath for the rest of our bounty to mature.

What's in your garden?