I’m not interested in getting out of my gardening responsibilities anymore. In fact, gardening is surprisingly satisfying and fun. Eating veggies from the garden, sunburned though they sometimes are, is more tasty than grocery store fare. Maybe it’s because I care, or maybe they actually taste better, but I like them better.

The garden is in the spot where the swimming pool used to be. It’s surrounded by a wooden deck where the kids like to play tag. Between Dick and I, we’ve planted broccoli, radishes, carrots, lettuce, spinach, corn, sunflowers, strawberries, zucchini, cucumbers, and tomatoes.

How do I keep the kids from trampling the plants? I don’t, always, but Degen helped me come up with an idea one day that has worked pretty well. We picked a small part of the garden where there are no plants and put some little toys and small gardening tools there, and Maggie and Degen are allowed to dig and bury their stuff there. Degen calls it burying (and digging up) his treasures and he marks it with a big X. That keeps them from digging up and burying our plants. The only problem is keeping them from bringing mud in the house…

So, we go outside together nearly every day and water the garden and do a little weeding. The other day I found some of those green worms on my broccoli plants. I care enough about that broccoli that I actually pulled a few of those worms off the plants and threw them away (I still have enough memory of my childhood to avoid stepping on them).