How did your garden grow?

   I was going through our pictures from the summer and realized that we had some great shots of the garden this year.  Dan has always loved to have a garden.  He and I have been gardeners together since that was our "real" job in Mongolia.  Our team did agricultural work and had the OK from the local officials to teach spiritual truth on the side as long as we kept up our gov't contract of aid in the form of teaching and working in agriculture.  Obviously it was not the main priority in our hearts to grow great gardens.....  we were there to be planting other types of seed!!  But, we had to do a really good job at our "job," or we would lose the opportunity to be heard by anyone wanting to hear.
   So, I think we've had a garden every year since 1997 no matter which side of the ocean we were living on, with the exception of maybe one when we were not living in the country.  For Dan, the garden is his favorite hobby and best form of relaxation.  Even though it's lots of work, he never gets tired of it. 



                              

 

 

 

 

 

And, through the whole month of June and most of July, I never got tired of seeing this view out of our kitchen window every morning.  You can see the sunflowers peeking up behind the corn.  They were Justin's surprise for the girls....  he planted them without the girls knowing, and as they came up and started to grow, he got the biggest kick out of making them guess what kind of plant it was!!



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, if I wanted to see them WELL, I had to go to the bottom of the garden and look up.....  way up, actually!!  They kept growing and growing and growing!!

 

 

 

To put it into perspective, Dan is almost 6'2" tall.  He is standing slightly below them here, but still, they were REALLY tall!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The produce helps to make all the work worthwhile.... but I honestly think Dan would plant a lot even if it didn't produce much at all!  As it is, we get to share a lot on the weeks that I'm too busy to can or freeze much!!