Growing is Knowing - Zucchinis & Things in The Garden

Today is August the first of 2017. Today I removed the first zucchini from its plant and silently gave thanks for the wonders that were given to us. Yes, I gave a silent prayer of thanks. A seed--a little seed!--and some dirt, and look: FOOD.

I have a home on a small property in the suburbs. I live within spitting distance to open fields and farms and orchards in east central Ontario. I will admit I often wish we could move to Niagara because I love that area and it is a little more temperate and therefore friendlier towards gardening. I am also smiling because some of the wine grown there is world class, and I could see good reasons to be close to those. Here is my raised bed in my backyard, the only problem with it that I find cucumbers in the cedars a lot of the time, one year I had pumpkins 5 feet up hanging like ornaments, it was funny. I switch the bed each year. Last year flowers, this year...

As I sat down to my morning coffee, satisfied with my garden zucchini and peas discovery, I realized I should speak to the reason I garden. The words came. Growing is knowing. I know I can not grow enough food for my family to store for the winter and I am glad I do not have to. I do think everyone should know how to, however. It is like all things. Knowledge can not be taken from you, everything else can. I started gardening again 6 years ago. It was the knowledge I wanted. I want my daughter to see it done and understand the time and the process needed to create food from seed to table. That is also the reason why I went on a mission to learn canning and food preservation. Knowledge for me and her, a knowledge that she can carry forward.

I planted peas and squash and zucchini and peppers and tomatoes this summer as well as a herb garden. I can see that I will have quite a few butternut squash and I look forward to cooking them up. There will be oodles of cucumbers and besides eating them fresh, I will probably make bread and butter pickles with them thereby canning them for winter. The zucchini will become relish or zucchini bread that I freeze for winter desserts.

I also found I had germination on some sunflower seeds I planted, much to my surprise. Honestly, I planted them because the Bluejays here about gifted me a single sunflower two years ago, pictured above, and I let it grow, loved it, and saved its seeds so I could try to plant some. I did not expect them to thrive. HA! Well, that was an incorrect assumption. I have 5 or 6 plants now growing. So much fun to watch, a garden is a slow joy to watch, just like children.

~ Hugs from Mum