Inch By Inch....Row by Row...I'm Gonna Make This Garden Grow

I love The Garden Song.

It was on one of the girl's tapes of children's songs when they were growing up.

I wrote a whole skit to the song, and Molly's first grade class performed it, complete with costumes.

Now, the lyrics to the song are my life.

If you are unfamiliar with the song, here are the words.

The Garden Song

Inch by inch, row by row, someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below 'til the rain comes tumbling down

So plant your rows straight and long, temper them with prayer and song
Mother earth can keep you strong if you give her love and care
Now an old crow watching hungrily from his perch in yonder tree
In my garden I'm as free as that feathered thief up there

Inch by inch, row by row, I'm gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row, someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below 'til the rain comes tumbling

Inch by inch, row by row, someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below 'til the rain comes tumbling .

If you have never heard the song, here is John Denver and the Muppets 

doing a great version of this song.

I will be heading to Moscow tomorrow for my sorority reunion, so I will not get to do my daily garden walks for the next few days, and I am going to miss it.  So I took a bunch of photographs this morning so I can see all the progress that happens in the next few days.  I expect there to be a lot of change in my vegetable garden.

Here are a few shots of the food that is growing.

Here are my round, Ronde Nice zucchini.  I grew these last year, and just loved them!  I also have a couple kinds of onions growing.  I have never grown onions before.

On the other end of this bed, among the dill plants, are about five different pepper plants and yellow summer squash.  They all are starting to get blossoms!

The other raised vegetable bed (made from horse troughs) has some regular zucchini growing at this end, again with lots of volunteer dill that is growing.

I had my first nasturtium blossom this morning.

I saved pea seeds from last year's crop, and they came up very successfully.

I also planted green beans from seeds I saved.  They have not been quite as successful germinating.  But the cabbage plants are going crazy!!

Last year I had a lot of winter squash come up volunteer, and I planted them in our "big pile of dirt" and we had a lot of squash.  The same thing happened this year, so I asked Paul to create a raised bed to plant the "mystery squash".  Within an hour he had this bed built, and had the squash plants planted by the end of the day.  I can't wait to see what grows from these plants.  Last year we had a lot of acorn squash hybrids.  Who know what they will be this year!!

I like turning used tires into little planters.  This year I have three tires with cucumber plants in them.  One tire has Armenian Cucumbers which are struggling a bit, but I think they are going to make it.  The other two tires have slicing cucumbers.

Last year I planted Rat Tail Radishes, and enjoyed them throughout the summer.  This tire has some rat tail radish plants.

I also use recycled tires for my "salad garden".  Each tire has a different salad green, including lettuces, kales and Swiss Chard.

I planted tomato plants in pots next to the house.  It is a really good area to grow the tomatoes.  They get a lot of sun, and we have a drip irrigation system to water them.  All my tomato plants came from the Tomato Lady at the Pine Creek Nursery.

I love growing food and love to harvest throughout the summer and into fall.  With the lettuce growing, I won't have to buy lettuce for the rest of the summer.  I love going out each day and clipping lettuce for our salads.  Eventually we will have other vegetables to add to our meals from the garden.  Nothing is better than fresh grown produce from the garden!!