Fruits of our labor...

This week was a very strange week for weather here in Raleigh.  After steaming humidity with days well in to the upper 90s and 100s, it got cooler - hi 70s/low 80s....just in time for July 4.    It stayed that way for several days, then the steamy days returned and we experienced one of the most beautiful displays of a storm I've ever seen.... the thunder roared and cracked like I've never heard, the lightening lit up the sky over and over, the wind blew strong and the rain fell non-stop.   It was 12:30AM and it seemed that the eye of the storm was right over us.  Amazingly not one of the children woke up and came running in to our room.  However, when I checked on them, I found Maria sitting straight up in her bed staring at her blinds....the flashes of lightening must have awoken her.  I gently layed her back down and she fell right to sleep. 

Amidst all this was my concern for our little garden in the back.  This was our second year, and the results have been inconsistent.  Last year we harveted little, but the plants grew.  This year there is a definite improvement, but still some plants are huge with lots of flowers, but no produce.  Our tomato plants have tons of blossoms but maybe only 1/4 are producing tomatoes.  My mom showed me an article in the paper today that stated because of the humidity the flowers of tomato plants are not releasing their pollen (it's becoming sticky due to the humidity) so you can tap the blossoms a few times with a pencil to help release the pollen.  I shall try this tomorrow.    Our herbs do fabulous ever year - this year we planted parsley, basil, rosemary, oregano and thyme.  Our watermelon plant is growing like crazy - no watermelons yet; we've pulled off 2 cayenne peppers, one green bell pepper (we took that plant out this week); no eggplants, a few yellow squash which appear to have stopped growing or are growing very slowly, and tomatoes, which are coming in better now.  Last year we planted calendula (marigolds) in the garden, and this year we decided to plant sunflowers.  The very first mothers day we moved in to this home the kids surprised me by planting sunflowers in the front of the house - the mammoth ones and they literall grew 12 feet high - beautiful!   So we've done so every year since then (last year none of them grew!).  This year there are two growing in the front of the house, and all the ones we planted in the garden are coming up... we planted 3 different varieties and the leaves are so different on each one.  Well, we had our first one blossom this week - amidst the storm!  The beautiful flower looks toward the sun as if it is praising God. 

Below is our garden when we first planted in April, followed by what is has grown into now

About 6 weeks ago when it was not looking like much was happening in the garden, Dio and I were outside wondering what to do, and Dio asked me, "Mom, did you pray over the garden?"  I looked at him and said no... so we quietly prayed together over the garden, and we praise God for what we have - we plant the seeds, we water, but God causes the growth.  Thank you Dio for that sweet reminder.   

April 2010

July 2010