My Poor Poor Garden

Understand, I am not complaining in the post -- I am simply making observations.

Okay, I have officially had my garden for a month now, and I haven't given it up -- Mom, aren't you proud! I even get down on my hands and knees to weed. My mom has a picture of me in elementary school sitting on a chair next to the garden with a rake in my hand just kinda raking the garden instead of doing the weeding I was suppose to be doing.

However, I have a question -- How in the world can you keep a garden going in Kansas?

Last week the hail took out one of my tomato plants, all of the eggplants, half my pumpkin plants (okay so there were only two to begin with, but half sounds big), and most of my cantaloupe.

Yesterday I lost half of my remaining garden. Not to hail, tornado, heavy rains, etc. I lost it to the wind of all things. one of my tomato plants got broken because of the leaves that got blown onto it. Four of my squash plants were uprooted, and the rest are definitely hurting from the wind. Half of my peas are gone (and there were about 20 of those plants). I even lost two of my lilies growing in the front yard -- the wind just broke their stalks. My corn and my carrots are yet unharmed -- although their is a baby rabbit that has suddenly decided to take up residence in our back yard. We've chased him out twice but he's determined to stay. So, will my carrots survive?

Thank you for listening to the ramblings of this gardener who had vowed as a teenager to never have a garden because it took too much work. Now I have a garden that takes very little work, but the weather is helping me to drastically reduce it's size. Praise the Lord for He is Lord over the wind and the rains (hail in this case). I know he will provide for our family, and in the meantime I am enjoying learning how to care and tend to the beautiful creation He has given us. I am thankful for being able to tend a garden with so few weeds and I am excited to see the fruits of our work at the end of this summer.

I do have a praise. I thought that all of our elm trees were diseased and on their last leg. Sandra from the K-State Extension office came out to take a look at our trees. They are at the end of their life, but if we keep them trimmed, and plant a new tree every five years (and remove one every five years) we should be able to keep our shade. Believe me -- This is VERY Important. For all of you who live in WI. This is just the first week of June and we have already up in the 90 degree weather. Yesterday the thermostat in the house read 84 degrees and we had the fans running all day.