The Garden!!

After months of watching my brother and sister-in-law's garden flourish and produce tons of yummy, fresh produce over the summer, I began to think it was time I built a garden of my own!  With the help of a couple friends and my parents we began the build.  It started with an adventure to Mount Juliet and a stinky ride home with the Bus full of vermiculite, peat moss and compost.  Once we had all of our supplies we were on our way...........

Once the Bus was unloaded we started to build the garden..........

It slowly but surely started to come together.

The FINAL PRODUCT

It proved to be very fruitful!

From the garden we ate sugar snap peas, blue lake beans, swiss chard, kale, mustard greens, cabbage, collards, broccoli, green onions, turnip greens, squash, zucchini, and tomatoes....on top of all that there was also an abundance of cilantro which apparently grows much better in the ground than it does in pots and also seems to do better in the fall (in Nashville) than it does in the summer (thank you Pam Koban).  There was also fresh thyme well into the winter (even survived the snow). 

As a child I heard stories from my mother of the hours upon hours she and her siblings spent at her grandparents' house shelling peas and putting up vegetables.  For years I envied her this labor of love and this garden, for me, is a small homage to the great-grandmother I never knew but always feel as a guiding presence in my life.