Family Garden Time: Year 2

August 16, 2013
21 months (in 3 days)

I love our garden.  It has been a labor of love this summer.  A test of our fortitude, to say the very least.  To sum it up?  In 3 days we caught 20 mice and 1 chipmunk.  Bring it.

I suppose you know you've killed a lot of mice when your 20 month old looks at an empty mouse trap and says, "Uh oh", with a tone that makes you cringe.  This beautiful little child has been exposed to a horrible act.  I know it's our fault.  But, dude, the mice were chewing through our screen door and crawling into our house.  There is a line.  And they crossed it.

Despite rodents, our garden has thrived!

 

The chipmunks got into our garden.  Our sacred plot of fertile soil in the backyard.  Man oh man, we tried everything.  In the early days, we hung CD's to scare them away.  Unsuccessful.  So we graduated to the Owl.  Biggest scam ever.  We double layered the netting.  We barricaded with rocks. We even trained Owen to chase after them.  Yet they kept coming.  Every morning at 8:00 am I would look out at my garden (in its youth, desperately trying to grow despite the daily onslaught by small critters) and see the two chipmunks munching away.

NOT scary.  NOT effective.

We worked with our garden daily and we are finally reaping the benefits.  Yum.  Sadly, our lettuce and cilantro never did come to fruition this year.  Our zucchini plants over compensated.  Fellow gardeners know that zucchini's take off.  We didn't check the garden for 4 days or so when we were off on a road trip and we came back to this monster:

Love my boys.  And LOVE that massive zucchini.

Intrigued by the growth popping up in the garden, Colter loves to hold our hand and take a mini-tour through the garden while we pick tomatoes, basil, potatoes and carrots.  His little feet have squashed several of our carrot tops.  And his little hands have squashed many a tomato.

Checking out a zuchinni flower.

Exploring a green tomato.