Spike in the Garden

I love everything about working in my garden.  Everything.  I like planting, pruning, watering, weeding, mulching, fertilizing, dead-heading...  I even like the simple act of setting up the sprinklers -- getting them just right to water as much garden but as little sidewalk as possible.  After I set them up, I'll just stand there and watch them for as long as I can.  Sprinklers are really quite pretty, especially in the early morning or late evening sunlight.  And everything looks and smells so fresh after its been watered.

When we first moved in almost two year ago now, there was essentially nothing in our yard.  The first thing I planted was tons and tons of tulip bulbs.  Tulips and lilacs are my favorite flowers.  Tulips never cease to surprise me because they come up so early in the spring.  Every year I see them beginning to sprout and I think, "Wow, is it time for spring flowers already!?"

Gardening is one of those everyday activities that makes me feel closer to God.  It's actually a lot easier than I expected -- I plant a tiny seed and it turns into a huge plant seemingly all by itself.  I love to see perennials getting bigger each year and to see new growth on old plants that I'm trying to renovate. 

Isaac loves working in the garden with me too.  Usually that means that he digs for worms or plants things that I don't actually want to grow there -- like helicopters from the neighbor's maple tree.  He's got a "worm habitat" under the deck, which is really just a bucket of dirt, some leaves, etc.  Sometimes he'll also make "houses" for bugs out of leaves and sticks.

Sometimes he's helpful too, though.  He can actually pretty reliably recognize weeds and pulls them without me asking him to.  He likes to water the plants too.  He'll chat with me about how the plants are doing: "Look, Mom!  Our tomatoes are lookin' pretty good!  They're getting taller!"  and "Look!  There are more flowers on the strawberry plants that will grow into strawberries!"  He asks me questions like, "Why are cucumbers vegetables and strawberries fruit?"  And I chat with him about why we need to trim back this bush so that those flowers get more sunlight, etc. 

I'm also really proud of how he can give our guests a full tour of our backyard.  He can accurately point out hostas, vinca, herbs (though not the specific types yet), raspberries, blueberries, cucumbers, lilac bushes, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, and day lilies.

One day a couple weeks ago we planted some herb seeds in a little flower pot.  They sprouted within a couple days.  Later, I asked him, "What's your favorite thing to do, Isaac?"  He said, "Watch herbs sprout."  Ha ha!  Funny four year old.


One day before school was out, Isaac brought home a picture for me.  Up to that point, he had been drawing people and ONLY people.  I may have gotten a little teary eyed when he pulled out a very detailed picture of our garden.  It meant so much to me!  I could tell he worked hard on it -- it had lots of colors and filled the page.  And it showed me that gardening together was something that he valued as much as I do.

The first harvest of lettuce