How Does Your Garden Grow?

Last Spring Maddie and Papa Doug germinated some pumpkin seeds and after they began to sprout, they planted them in our makeshift garden in the backyard.

Maddie was so diligent in watering her pumpkin plants every day and before long her once little pumpkin sprouts turned into enormous pumpkin vines that took over the entire back garden.

I think she was hoping for a larger variety of pumpkin, but she was able to get these 7 very cute pumpkins. She would have gotten more, but our garden became infested with some nasty bug that started to eat all of her pumpkins, so she picked the ones that were still salvageable.

I look at these pumpkins and feel like fall is really upon us. I love that Maddie got to do this with her Grandpa who is far away and share this experience with him. I love that she worked hard at something that she enjoyed and I love that she was able to see some of the "fruits" of her labors.

In other gardening news....

The rest of our garden is wrapping up for the season. We (when I say "we", I mean Dave, while I watched from the kitchen window) planted a few containers of tomatoes (cherry, grapes and yellow) this year. They did not appreciate the intolerable heat this summer and their foliage and fruit showed (or I should say--didn't show) it. Here is probably the last of our harvest for the season:

And our not-so-thriving tomato plants (Papa Doug, you might want to avert your eyes):