Having discovered the joy of vegetable gardening two years ago (which was a HUGE surprise considering how I loathed working in my parents' garden as a child and teen), I desperately wanted to plant again this year.
But with a new baby, a busy husband who wouldn't be available to help, and a small business to run, I was sure I wouldn't have the time.
Enter Lisa, my friend and neighbor. She also had a new baby and the desire to have a garden. But her biggest roadblock? No dirt. Her entire yard is finished and landscaped. So we hatched up a plot to plant, weed, and harvest together, using my dirt! We have plenty of dirt at our house. (Incidentally, why is it that the word "soil" is so much more attractive than the word "dirt"?)
Theoretically, the babies would play quietly on a blanket under the apple tree while we tended the garden just a few feet away. And it actually worked some of the time! Most of the time, one or the other of us was rolling a baby back over or retrieving a binky or toy while the other one of us yanked weeds or planted seeds. But we'd usually get a good 10 minutes in before anyone started to fuss (including ourselves). And little Emmy loved this apple tree; she was mesmerized by the rustling leaves.
Here's Keira with her little friend, Emmy, back at the start of our co-gardening adventure in June. It's amazing how much they've both changed in 3 months. These two have sprouted even faster than our garden did!
The garden back in June. We planted corn, carrots, purple carrots, green beans, snow peas, onions, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon, butternut squash, and pumpkins. And my husband planted a battery-operated electric fence, which deterred Jovie from digging up all our hard work. :)
And here's our jungle of a garden now—three months later. At some point in the summer, and we can't exactly say when, we really scaled back our weeding efforts. 
And yet, despite our recent lack of weeding, the garden* is still thriving, and we're enjoying a bounteous harvest.
*Apart from the snow peas and spinach, that is, which never thrived in the first place.
The sunflower row is one of my favorite features! And the bees love them, too, it seems.
Behold: our Sunday-afternoon harvest from last week. Much of this was consumed for dinner that very day, apart from the mystery vegetable in the upper-right corner.
Neither of us had ever planted watermelon before, and it was scrumptious! Everything (except for the mystery vegetable) tastes better when you plant it yourself.
Now to unveil the mystery vegetable. It is, allegedly, a canteloupe. That's what we planted. But as you can see, it is NOT. And there's another one ripening on the vine.
And (drumroll please) it turns out to be... a cuceloupe!
It looks like an elongated canteloupe inside, but it smells exactly like a cucumber, with a mildly cucumber-ish flavor. Apparently, our canteloupe and cucumber plants were being a bit naughty when we weren't looking, and they cross-bred. The funny thing is, there were plenty of closer plants to get busy with (zucchini, squash, and pumpkin), but the canteloupe must have had his sights set on the attractive young plant down the street.
Honestly, this is my favorite time of year. Every night for dinner, I round up a quick main dish (usually something grilled) and then head out to the garden to find a side dish or two. Some nights this summer, we've had four or more garden veggies on our plates come dinner time. And I'm dying to try a recipe from my sister that involves fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, quinoa, bleu cheese, and a few other ingredients. If it's amazing, you'll be the first to hear about it.
Oh, how I dread the arrival of the frost!
, which won't cause your lettuce to discolor. But don't ignore the "top-rack dishwasher safe only" warning, as I did, or the end of your lettuce knife will melt like a piece of taffy.
by James Rogers, here is the origin of the phrase "green with envy":
