Enjoying Life's Bounties

I have started really enjoying all that summer offers.  This started last week with a visit to my dad’s best friend’s cottage with my folks; a place I went to every year as a child but have not been in many years.  It was wonderful.  My son got to swim, fish and paddleboat around.  I relaxed, took lots of pictures and sketched.  We ate too much food and really enjoyed ourselves and each other’s company.

  

The farmer’s markets are something else I enjoy.  This week I bought freshly baked multigrain bread and have been eating it with beefsteak tomatoes from my mom-in-law’s garden.

My fav tomato sandwich: one slice of fresh bread, lightly toasted; spread on butter; add slices of freshly picked tomato; salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy the taste of summer in your mouth. This works especially well when I am mindfully eating my sandwich.

Also, my little box garden is starting to produce. I’ve had strawberries throughout the summer (only a few berries a week). Now I have some tiny tomatoes turning red.  The first ones came last week.  I can also see I need to “mound” the potatoes and the cucumbers are still flowering, hopefully they well develop.  Clearly I had a bit of a late start on planting and my plants have really struggled with the hot July and the lack of watering (because every third week I was at my parents and my garden became neglected). Nonetheless, I’m excited to have some of our own produce.

Growing Together

Today I’m happy about having a home that is relatively clean. Now, for those of you who have lived with three year olds, I’m sure you know what a luxury it is to have a clean home.  Today is even better, because I managed to recruit my little guy to vacuum with me.  I find that the more that I can involve my son in the day to day tasks, the easier running my household seems to be.  A small accomplishment, I think, for a single parent who has a lot on her plate.

Of course, I can’t always guarantee Little Guy will be cooperative.  What I find is working for us is having a lot of different activities and friend/family who come out or who we meet up with who will engage us in lots of different distractions. Tomorrow, I have loose (the plans always need to be flexible) plans to finish planting my vegetable and herb garden with my son.  I know he’ll like playing in the soil and watering everything, but I’m not sure he’ll be able to follow the instructions for planting.  If all works out, there will be a visit with one of my close friends and her son.  This will be endless fun for Little Guy as he really enjoys their company. Then there will be the much coveted (by me) nap and go to my in-laws for Sunday dinner.  Full day, but keeping us busy seems to prevent my little guy from destroying the house out of boredom.

On the thought of gardening, this year I am trying something new.  Now, pretty much anything with gardening is new for me.  I have very little experience growing anything, beyond some very tolerant houseplants.  With my concerns around health I have a strong interest in eating organic and I find I am very concerned about the pesticide load and other chemical load that my body has been exposed to.  I know I have a few decades of living life eating and exposing myself to these things, but I still think that limiting my expose can only help. So I decided that I want to plant an organic garden.

My mom has contributed in the great idea of using my old recycling bins to be my garden containers. That way I know the quality of soil that I am growing my plants in. I have found a source of organic seeds and plants. The only drawback of this plan is the recycling bins are plastic, but I know they are not being heated and it is the type 5 plastic, so perhaps a little less risk. When I finish planting my garden, I’ll take some pictures to share how the garden looks.  I’ll see how the plants take, and all going well, I’ll have strawberries, potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, radishes and a wide variety of herbs. I specifically chose a few plants that are known to carry a high pesticide load and then I chose tomatoes because I love them fresh picked and the radishes are “Easter egg radishes” which, truly I just wanted to see what they look like when grown.