What Grows in Your Garden?

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato. ~Lewis Grizzard

Do you have a garden or maybe just a tomato plant in a big pot out on the deck? If you don't have a garden now, have you grown a garden in the past? 

We used to grow a huge garden and I would can and freeze dozens of quarts and pints of beans, corn, zucchini, tomatoes, and more. Come winter, that food tasted fine and kept the grocery bill down too. We still have a garden, but now our son and his wife grow and harvest most of the vegetables. We just don't need as much as we used to when we had more mouths around our table. 

So we let them have most of our garden space and get to enjoy the extra benefit of seeing the grandkids gathering their own food and learning how that food grows. When the kids are little, they enjoy picking peppers and tomatoes, even beans.

As they get older, they're not quite as thrilled about the prospect of picking a basket of beans or wading out in a wet garden to pick tomatoes that need picking, rain or no. They have enjoyed the watermelon and cantaloupe this year. Fun vegetables to grow and this year we beat the raccoons to them.  

I don't care what anybody says: Nothing is better than a tomato you grow. There's something about it that's different than a tomato you can buy. It's a great thing. ~Tom Vilsack

I think that's true for everything you grow. It's just better when you've paid in sweat for what you eat. What's your favorite vegetable to grow? Oh, and I like having a row of flowers on the edge of the garden to harvest and enjoy too. The zinnias have done great this year.

Tell me what you've enjoyed most growing in your gardens.

Can You Guess the Mystery Photo?

My plan was to post this early, but best laid plans. Sigh. I just have to admit it. I'm a burn the midnight oil writer. But tonight I have excuses. Really!! First we had a fellowship supper at church. I had to cook something. You can't go to a potluck supper with an empty dish, now can you? I took my zucchini mess. Doesn't that sound delicious? Actually it is pretty good and easy to make and uses up some of those plentiful zucchinis. I also made bread sticks, but somebody else brought yummy garlic Texas toast, so my bread sticks mostly went begging. That's the thing about potlucks. You never what kind of luck you're going to have, but at our church our pots are usually pretty lucky. Then I took some green beans fresh from the garden. 

That's the other reason I'm late tonight. I had to can the rest of those green beans when I got home from church. My canner holds seven quart jars. I had enough beans for six quart jars. I didn't want to do a less than full canning, so even though it was almost dark I hurried out to the garden to see if I could find one more quart of beans. While I was out there a neighbor came over to ask me something about my mom. Her mother is going to be moving into the room that my mother was in at The Lantern. What are the odds of that? Two women who were neighbors for over sixty years ending up living in the same room of a memory care facility. She said her mother is settling in well. So that was good news. But that slowed down the bean picking. Her grandsons were with her and they each had a baby rabbit. Talk about temptation! That got Oscar's nose twitching. He had just chased a rabbit out of the backyard and then these kids bring a couple over. I warned them not to drop those babies! Oscar's a good dog, but he is a dog.

Then my ancient canner leaked steam and I had to start over. Have I whined enough? LOL. But the beans are processed. The new mystery photo is posted up top. 

I hope this one isn't as easy as some of you found the last one. You can't imagine how tickled I was when one of you finally made a wrong guess. It's not as much fun when you all know the answer. And I really thought that picture would be hard. But obviously, quite a few of you have been to the zoo. No fooling you. It is a polar bear under water. But it could have been a white dog underwater the way a few of you guessed. Except I don't have an underwater camera and have a thing about keeping my head above the water. Here's the rest of the photo. The mystery photo was the bear's nose breathing out bubbles. I took the picture last year after the St. Jude Walk at the Louisville Zoo and see, Peggy, there is a grandkid. :) 

So now you can guess on the new picture. Remember, it's more fun if you guess first and then look at what everybody else has already guessed. They could be wrong, you know. They weren't last time, but they could be this time! Maybe I'm just not mysterious enough. 

But if you guess again (remember you don't have to have a right guess to be entered, just a guess), you'll get a new entry into the giveaway for Karen Kingsbury's autographed The Chance and the winner's choice of one of my books. The contest is open to U.S.A. or Canada and you must be 18 to enter. I'll draw for the winner Sunday, so get your guesses in. And thanks for taking part in my mystery photo fun. I'll try not to be a poor sport if you all guess this one right. LOL.