Gardening

Until this week, I really still felt like I was student teaching, just without the supervision and second opinion to fall back on.  But I've decided that as scary as it is, real teaching is better.  Why?  a.) Paychecks really do exist and b.) I don't have all the tedious paperwork to do in the evenings.  I even feel like I'm getting to know my students on an entirely different level.  Don't worry, I'm not abandoning grad school.  But instead of typing up meeting notes, I can now spend my evenings as a real person: whether hanging out with NES, seeing movies with JLG or entertaining my parents and puppy dog.  That's been my week so far.  It seems hard to believe tonight was the last time my parents will come and visit me here.  And it was the first time that HGM, my favorite dog (well, only dog) came to visit.  She had a wonderful time running all over the quad.

I am also thankful that last night's storms were not too severe here or at home.  I do wish I could go and help the people who lost so much to the tornadoes.

And I am still kitchenless.  I want to cook again.

But!  This weekend was Memorial Day weekend, and in this corner of New England, it's about time to be starting vegetable gardens.  Our garden started out as just tomatoes a few years ago, but last year I talked my parents into expanding our garden a little.  Last year I added peppers, zucchini, summer squash and cucumbers to the tomatoes.

Unfortunately, our garden never seems to be the crazy producing patch that it seems it should be.  Last year we didn't get a whole lot of produce from it, but we discovered that Miracle Grow really does help, and I am hoping that using it from day 1 will help even more this year.

But, this weekend was garden planting time.  I can't wait to see how it does.  I am hoping for some fresh veggies to make things with later this summer.  I'll let you know how it's coming.  Look for updates.  And recipes, if we ever get that far.

I ended up getting some of those crazy hanging-upside-down tomato planters for an early father's day present for dad.  So that's our tomato quota for the year.  Hopefully they work.

In the ground, we planted zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers (the staple of our summer diet), butternut squash, buttercup squash and bell peppers.

I think the squash is more my wishful thinking, as we seem to have a problem getting anything to ripen before the frost, but, hey, I can hope.

According to the today's report, everything survived the hail yesterday.  Good good.

Grow garden, grow!  You can do it!  I believe in you!