Crunchy Munchy!!

Summer is my favorite time of year for many reasons. New York, well The Finger Lakes, are home to numerous state parks loaded with spectacular hiking trails and waterfalls, which is partly the reason I agreed to move to this area. I'm a sucker for nature and this place seemed like New England's mecca of sorts. That and my husband's PhD. is coming from Cornell University. An offer that neither of us could afford to pass up.

All this aside, another reason I love summer is because of the growing season. There are a lot of farmer's markets around here where you can buy nutritious organic produce, but why buy when you can grow your own. And that is what we do. The first year we lived here (in our house, that is) we didn't have much to brag about other than a small patch of tomato plants. There wasn't any time to plant on a larger scale because our back yard was one giant overgrown mess and we didn't end up moving until July.

The second summer I had cleared much of the upper level of the back yard and we began digging the earth, preparing it for growing lots of yummy vegetables. I was pregnant last year though, so I wasn't of much help. Even still our garden was much better than the previous year except for the ground hog that ate our watermelon and pumpkin plants, broccoli, beans, beats, spinach...you get the idea. The only thing he truly left untouched was our tomato and green pepper. He didn't eat our strawberries either, but we have a dog that ate those. Go figure. This is what it looked like early on.

The bushes to the right of the garden are red currants and black raspberries. The dog liked those, too. We have blueberry bushes as well. Luckily those are not in the fenced in area....so we got to eat lots of blueberry pancakes and muffins.

So far we've he has turned the ground and seeded our cold weather crops.


This year we are taking a new approach. I don't want to capture the ground hog and move him from his home, I don't want to harm him in any way, we just want him to stay the hell away from our food. So....we are fencing the garden in this year. The hubby even worked his butt off digging a small trench around the garden to deter the wittle waskly gwound hog from digging this way into our oasis of fresh goodies. The hubby has also lengthened and widened the garden from last year. I want more stuff and he insists on growing corn. So...I insisted on more garden.

It's finally starting to take shape and evolve into the garden we want for the rest of our time here. Only two more summers and we'll be moving and hopefully starting this process all over again. The people who buy our house when the time comes will probably hate gardens and throw grass seed down. Oh wouldn't that just be the way the story goes. Anyhow...this is the garden so far. I'll put more pictures up when things start to grow...and I'll throw in a few of the flowers I'll be planting around the yard, too.

For good measure....one more of the garden...with a cute little baby in the middle.