Garden Fun

Welcoming in the warmer weather, we have spent a large amount of time outdoors playing and working in the backyard.

lemonade popsicles

We have spent the last couple of months picking many grapefruits and lemons off the trees and recently helped Gramps trim the trees back, as they are already blossoming for the coming season. We have made gallons of delicious lemonade and grapefruit juice, lemonade popsicles, a couple of batches of lemon poundcake, a lemon pie, and multiple tasty dishes using these amazingly large and beautiful lemons. We have been able to share the lemons with few people, but even after using so many and freezing the juice there will still be too many that will go unused.

 trimming the grapefruit tree with Gramps

Our new project is gardening with Gramps. He already had a small plot of the backyard being used for a small garden, but decided to dig up a 21 foot by 13 foot plot for a much larger garden. It took a couple of weeks, lots of hard work, and many hands to dig the dirt, re-route the watering system pipelines, cultivate, and plant an assortment of hopeful vegetable seeds. Our garden includes tomatoes, green beans, corn, bell peppers, jalapenos, banana peppers, okra, carrots, zucchini, and yellow squash. I also planted one small pot of cilantro and we already have a large plant of wild mint growing in the yard.

 re-routing the watering system pipeline

 Gramps' big helper

 our completed garden

This gardening project has been one of the best activities for the kiddos, especially Evie. She spent more hours than the rest of us outside working alongside Gramps with pink gloves and a hoe. It was wonderful seeing her energy and diligence being put to use with a worthwhile activity. Her favorite part was placing each of the seeds that Gramps handed her into the rows. She and Jackson help Gramps water the garden every couple of days and have done relatively well staying off the fragile garden ground. :)

It is awesome using this gardening as reminder of God and his marvelous creation. Evie runs around so excited naming off everything that God has made. She asked me when He was going to make the plants start to grow and she asked, "If I pray a lot will He grow them faster?" It is going to be so much fun watching these plants grow over the next few months. Hopefully, we will be able to enjoy a variety of vegetables from our homegrown garden, helping feed this family of seven.

...Now we just have to be diligent and wait patiently for God to grow His garden.