A Bountiful Harvest

For the past three years, Dave and I have planted a small garden in our back yard. The first year, we had a fairly decent crop, several yellow squash, a few green beans, and a few cucumbers; enough to prepare several dinners throughout the summer. The second year, all of our plants died while we were on vacation, so we did not have any vegetables to eat.

This year, we changed locations of our garden, and planted in a sunnier spot. We increased the size, and planted a variety of plants and seeds. We both love summer squash, so we planted 3 plants, and 2 packages of seeds. We planted a package of cucumber seeds, zucchini seeds, several packages of Kentucky Wonder green beans (my grandmother planted these every year, and they are a family favorite), three tomato plants, corn, and 1 green pepper plant. Today, we checked the garden, and brought in our first harvest. I am awe struck at what God can do!

This is the first harvest from the garden, and there are at least 50 more summer squash growing, tons of beans, and several tomatoes and cucumbers. We even have 8 ears of corn growing! I know I am probably way more excited about this than I should be, but I just can't explain the joy I feel when we plant a small see, water it, and receive such a bounty in the end. With the high price of groceries these days, this is a true blessing for our family, and our neighbors as well, as this is more than we could ever eat by ourselves, so I sent several squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes home with them today. They planted a garden in their back yard, but because of the excessive rain we have had this spring and summer, their entire garden was under water for weeks, and everything died.

The squash pictured here is 17" long, 12" around at it's widest part, and weighs 3 pounds 12.8 ounces. Dawson just had to hold it for the picture, and he complained about how heavy it is. I have washed, cut, blanched, and froze all of the vegetables, except for this big guy. I think I will cut and use half of it throughout the week, and freeze the other half. The green beans are soaking in water as we speak, and we will be eating them with our ham and scalloped potatoes for dinner tonight.
I cut up half of the cucumber, one of the smaller squash, the green pepper, and several of the tomatoes (we have Roma, grape, and Big Boy hamburger tomatoes), and added a little garlic and onion, and New Potatoes, and will make my famous chicken packets for dinner tomorrow night. I just toss the veggies and chicken together with some Italian dressing, and place them in foil. I make little packets, and place them on the grill. In about 20 minutes, we have a complete meal. The kids don't care for the veggies, so I just make a couple with chicken and potatoes only, and that makes them happy. I'd love for them to eat more veggies, but I'll take what I can get. :)