Why I would never have survived as a farmer...

We had the noble idea that we would plant a garden this year! We know next to nothing about growing things, but figured... how hard could it be? Just put the plants in the ground and water them every day, right? No big deal, any body could do it! So one beautiful Saturday in May we tilled up a large spot in our backyard, bought $75 worth of plants at Home Depot and put them in the ground. We took photos and had the grandparents over for a BBQ to see our hopeful garden. We even painted a sign that said "Bergstrom's Best Garden Ever!" and posted it with pride...

Fast forward to June.... The watermelon, cantalope, cucumbers, corn and one of the pumpkin plants are dead. Was it bugs, lack of light, poor soil... who knows! All we know is they're dead, dead, dead! But it's not a total wash... we still have tomatoes, carrots and three pumpkin plants! We still had hope!

Fast forward to July... Tomatoes are doing great, I don't have the heart to thin out the carrots and I'm loving my pumpkins every day, but they are not growing... they aren't dead yet, but they're the same size they were in May.

Fast forward to August... My pumpkins won't grow or die! My tomatoes are thriving!!! And we decide our carrots have grown as much as they can so we invite Will to come pull them out. It was his favorite thing! He enjoyed every minute of it! The longest one was 3" long, but they still tasted good. And we have fresh grape tomatoes everyday! Yum!

I know that my ancestors were all farmers, but everybody was back then... they had to be in order to feed their families! I, on the other hand, was born in a time when I have the luxury of driving down to the grocery store if I'm in the mood for a watermelon or a cucumber... and I am so thankful for that! The garden lesson was a good one for me as much as the kids... Be thankful for Harmon's!! Can you imagine if we had to survive on what we grew in our garden? We wouldn't last a week!

As for our pumpkins... Kelly's and Geana's are doing great so we'll just rely of the gardening skills of our family for our Jack-o-lanterns this year...