The Garden

It all began with a phone call from Stephanie.

Long story short: They live on an awesome property about 10 minutes from us, and their landlord offered them part of his land to use for a garden. She was calling to see if we'd be interested in doing it with them...uh, YES, please!!

We met down at the Raleigh Farmer's Market to buy plants

(bonus because it doubled as a Reed Academy field trip!)

*the nice lady that offered to take our group picture completely cut Mollie out of the picture, but I won't hold it against her : )

The kid crew (minus Abby who was in preschool since we went on a Friday)

Here's what we got...tomatoes, zucchini, squash, jalapenos, cucumber, watermelon, cantaloupe, okra, eggplant...

One of the many reasons I love Steph...she's uber-organized and came up with a plan and a map of where the plants would go.

Playing in the dirt. Hands-down the best part, in my kids' opinions.

Larry and Josh went to get truckloads of compost

to amend the soil before we planted.

Working hard. They make a good team...

Kate and Anna Kate...BFFTF (the acronym they made up...

"Best Friends Forever, Totally Forever")

Everything is in...

And here it is, 6 weeks later!

(Their landlord has tobacco planted on the rest of the land, which you can see off to the right)

*Our 'scarecrow' makes me laugh every time I see it. But, it's doing its job!

Then...

...and now! Picking the first-fruits!!

This is what we picked this week. I can't even tell you how happy this made me...

...or this...my word. There is little else like a fresh, summer tomato. Mmm...

And grilled zucchini and squash is a Team Reed fave...how cool to be doing it with our very own, fresh, organic vegetables!?!

It's gonna be a goooood summer.

(Thanks, Steph and Larry!!)