My garden this morning...

We arrived back in Oregon late Thursday night (too late to go check the garden or do anything but crawl in bed and hope the kids would sleep in).  We woke up, but not too early, and walked out to the garden Friday morning (this seemed like a better idea than unpacking the truck).  Jeff and I are such "garden nerds" that we waited until we were both up and ready so we could see it together.  While we were gone I knew that many of the veggies in our garden, and cherries in our tree, would be ready.  People emailed me and messaged me letting me know that they were taking stuff from our garden.  I had encouraged them to do this because I just don't like waste. We didn't anticipate what we would find Friday morning and what it would require us to do!We were excited and a bit overwhelmed.    

 Pie cherries

 This is what it looked like AFTER people had picked and after Jeff and I picked approximately 14 cups of cherries yesterday. 

After picking yesterday and having peas, zuchini, squash, beets, yellow beans, carrots, and onions with our dinner last night and cherry pies for dessert (thanks mom for the pie maker!) this is what I got out of the garden today.  Basil, green beans, carrots, squash, and a boat load more cherries. 

I absolutely love having a garden.  The kids love having a garden.  I was skeptical several years ago when Jeff suggested gardening because I had no idea what I was doing.  I thought that it would be so much more work than it is.  It is work (mostly weeding), but not what I expected.  Ten of the things that I have learned (in no particular order of importance):

1.  Basil can be frozen for later use.

2.  Most tomatoes come ripe around the time we are heading back to school which isn't always convenient.

3.  Peas never produce as much as I think they will which is fine because I don't like peas anyway.

4.  My corn is never "knee high by the 4th of July".

5.  The birds in my neighborhood don't like pie cherries.

6.  Squash plants (including pumpkins) take up a lot of space and their leaves hurt.

7.  Walls of water allow us to plant early.

8.  Jeff likes his pepper plants (sometimes more than me, I think) and will race out to the garden to protect them from hail.

9.  I don't like salad enough to eat all the lettuce my garden produces and I don't know how to keep it from going to seed ("bolting" is the new word I learned for that).

10.  Gardening without using chemicals makes me feel better about what I produce and the fact that the boys can eat straight from the garden. 

We are far from experts and learn something new EVERY year.  Right now I am thankful for the internet and suggestions from all kinds of people on how to use pie cherries because there is no way we could ever eat that many pies.  I made six pints of jam yesterday and will be making cherry banana bread today along with freezing more pie filling.  Wish me luck!

P.S.  If you are comfortable on a ladder, come on over for the cherries at the top of the tree.