Veggie Garden

This afternoon I planted a vegetable garden. I will be thrilled to harvest a great variety of veggies from the garden. Hopefully, that will happen. Gerry built the raised box to hold the special topsoil. I planted the seeds. Watching a garden grow is something I especially love to do, though I have really not had a significant garden for a very long time. Typically, I have grown a tomato plant or two, but it has been ages since I have mustered any real gardening effort. That's understandable, since we have not lived in our own home for quite a while, and also I was fully occupied elsewhere.

Thinking of gardens brings to mind a couple of memories. I remember the first time I tried to grow a vegetable garden as a young child of maybe seven or eight. I just dug up a plot of the back yard and planted the seeds. Once the plants were up and young and tender, some stray animal came along and destroyed everything. I was devastated. It might even have been my pet chicken, Doodle, but I don't remember that part.

A woman who worked for us brought me a baby chick for Easter, which I raised and treated like a pet bird, sitting on my shoulder wherever I went. Doodle thought she was a dog, or a human or something. I think she must have been smarter than most chickens, who are not known for their intelligence. (but most chickens have not been raised as a member of the family). Whenever the back screen door of the house opened, she heard it, and came waddling toward the house as fast as she could. She was a free range chicken with lots to eat, so heading toward the door was more an act of affection, or so I believe. Eventually, an old brown chicken wandered into the yard. Somewhere along the way, its eyes had been pecked out and it was blind. My Doodle became the seeing eye chicken who walked in front of the old brown hen and clucked so she would know where to go. The blind hen followed gratefully.

You had to look where you were walking when you walked in the yard. The old hen just dropped her eggs wherever she happened to feel the urge, not being able to see.

Anyway, my first gardening effort did not amount to much. Hopefully, this one will overflow with zucchini, bell peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, okra, beans and cucumbers.

I surely hope it will!