Gardening

GARDENING! What a big but fun project. This is my 88 yr old, (almost 99 year) Dad in their ND garden. Now for those of you who are not familiar with ND, Let me tell you, nothing grows as big or as fast as in ND. at least the Red River Vally part of ND where my parents and brother live. I am always amazed at the beautiful producing gardens my parents have grown but even more so now with the age they are. My Mother just canned 10 pints of green beans. She is 86 years old, well, on Sept. 1st she will be 86. Not only the vegetables grow vibrant and fast but if you know weeds, they always grow twice or even three times as fast as the vegetables. That is why I am so amazed at how clean this garden is. My Dad takes the 4 wheeler to the garden and even did some hoeing, weeding and watering from the 4 wheeler.

If you look real close, you can spot the 4 wheeler behind the tall Lucius sweet corn. This is my Dad picking Green Beans. His legs are very bad and thus cause him a lot of pain. He has to work awhile and then sit for awhile. He just keeps on working tho. He mows all the lawn, gets the mail from the mail box at the end of their farm road, He even helps my brother and nephew swath grain and combines for a couple hours at a time which gives them a very much needed break. Their garden has lettuce, radish, onions, sweet corn, carrots, green beans, cucumbers,tomatoes, and squash. I may have forgotten a thing or two. This is the biggest garden they have had in the last couple years.

This is my garden, Not near as nice as my parents but it is doing great for SD and this 100+ degrees heat we have had for several days now. If you look at the bottom of this picture just where the hose doesn't show, you can see one of our nice slicer cucumbers. I owe a lot of this lush garden to my sweet cousin who also lives in our city, who came regularly to water when we were out of town for over 2 weeks this summer. I will have to give her some of the fresh vegetables and have over for a couple meals, Right?

This is my nice cabbage. we had a couple more but unfortunately they split open when they were a little bigger then softball size. We ate them anyway and they were tasty.

This is our biggest Tomato, They are looking quite nice this year also. You can see the bug damage on the leaves, We sure have had swarms of those tiny black beetle bugs that are no bigger then a * sign. They sure can do a lot of damage in a short period of time. I do powder but it is hard to control them especially with the hot weather. They love it hot and dry!

I hope you have all been having fun with your gardens as well. I don't can like my mother. If I have extra vegetables, I either give them away or freeze them.