Mellow Meadows: Loving the Dirty Life!

After 25 plus years teaching elementary school, it is time to move onto the next phase. And gardens are the BIG next phase. Finally, without summer school or summer professional development or summer go-into-school-way-ahead-of-time to set up/unpack/organize, I have had many sweaty hours to get dirty in the garden.

I LOVE IT!

Years ago, my sister-in-law gave me a wonderful book, DIRT, THE ECSTATIC SKIN OF THE EARTH, and more recently one of my dearest friends gifted me another entitled THE DIRTY LIFE. How these two lovely ladies well know my inner-child and my soul 'cause dirty has become my middle name. My first and last name, too!

Since moving out here to Mellow Meadows, we have always had a veggie garden... in fact, the veggie garden turned into two: The Boy Garden with its blue bandana flag, and The Girl Garden with its pink bandana flag. Both flags are now unbleached and wind-worn, and we have actually begun to economize and downsize the amount of food we raise. The new modification this year was to build raised beds with wood sides. We (as in Mr. Wonderful) built them using wood left to us by dear departed friend, TOM, but that's a whole other story.

Here are the beautiful fruits of the veggie gardens... what a delight!

Notice there are VERY FEW tomatoes. Qué lástima.. what a shame!

The late blight hit all 12 plants and BAM within a week they were G-O-N-E!

Digging in the vegetable patch is a sure-fire way to get dirty, but nowhere near as dirty as taking on those poor perennial beds that have been neglected for, ah, four years now. OY VEY, as they say, now THAT has required some very serious getting dirty, I can tell you. Who needs a health club when there are weeds to pull, more weeds to pull, mulch to lay down, more mulch to lay down, and more weeds to pull?! I discovered plants I didn't even know I had!

Take a look at these gorgeous blooms....