Flashback Friday - Gardening 101

I love Spring! My minds runs rampant with projects both indoors and outside. I love a beautiful yard and garden. Unfortunately, I did not inherit my mother's green thumb. I would love to pretend that the above pictures were indeed my lovely garden. NOT! They are in fact taken at the Riverbanks Botanical Gardens. This is what my patch of land would look like if I had unlimited time, funds and a really handy GARDENER or two! Some of my friends have stunning gardens. I have good intentions, really I do but I tend to under water, over water, or just plant the wrong things. Or when the thermostat reads 100+ , the only way I'm going outside is to sit by a pool or lake. That said, when the girls were small I wanted to encourage them to grow stuff. We started with small things, however, my father-in-law was appalled that we had so much land and "nothing" planted. Over the years, he took over the entire backyard of his suburban home. You could barely get out the back door without stepping on peppers, cucumbers, you name it. Imagine our surprise when we came home one day to find the back yard plowed up and planted in green beans! Amazingly, the things grew and grew and grew and grew....I think my father-in-law came by periodically to check on the progress and add his magic growing dust to these green beans. We ate green beans almost every night in every way imaginable. I CANNED green beans, gave them away, pickled them, froze them and finally when the weather hit the 100's and the gigantic locusts started visiting I turned the green beans over to said locusts or giant grasshoppers,whatever they were, they thumped hard when they landed!

The girls enjoyed watching the beans grow, picking them and eating the fruits of their labor. Baby girl in the background was not fond of being dirty but to give her credit she did do her part! My father in law was killed by a drunk driver and taken out of our lives a lot sooner than expected. I have never had as much success growing anything since the year of the bumper crop of beans. As the weather improves, my thoughts have once again turned towards spring planting and what I should add this year. I do have some beautiful flowers and a lovely lawn! I have plans for some herbs and a few easy, peasy vegetables...maybe my friend Phyllis can sprinkle her magic growing dust! How does your garden grow?

Good Grief, what color was my hair?!!! Green Bean Summer circa 1987. Life doesn't get too much better than this!!!
For my daughters in honor of farming and gardening, yes it is the blue jean jumper and flowered shirt! I will probably wear the shirt whilst weeding the flower beds this weekend. The jumper has sadly gone where the "what not to wear" clothes go when they are mocked.

Have a happy weekend, if you're bored, I have plenty of weeds to go around!