And first Farmer's Market done!

Wooweee....that was fun!

I have a confession to make...I was not really looking forward to our first day at market.  My garden has been an utter failure this year and I didn't feel like we would have anything to sell.  I've been focusing so much on my garden that I completely forget we have great meat and egg products to sell!  We sold ground beef, pork sausage, chicken and ducks eggs.  It was so much fun to meet everyone!  I had a total blast and can't wait until next week.  Thanks for everyone who stopped by to buy meat and eggs from us or even just to say hi!  We really appreciate it!

And now on to the garden.  I had such high hopes this year and what I've come to realize was unrealistic expectations of myself.  I underestimated the amount of work that I had planned for myself and overestimated my abilities to grow.  Combine that with the fact that I've got a six month old to take care of and actually manage to cook some meals now and then.  And let's not get started on the laundry...  It's tough, because the really good growers make it look easy.  And it's not.  There is so much to learn about soil fertility, planting schedules, pest and weed management.  My hats off to you experienced growers!  But we all have to start somewhere and this year is my somewhere.  For every seed that I plant, I gain experience.  For every time I lose a planting to bugs, I learn.  And every time I look at my garden and want to throw my hands up and quit, I have to remember what kind of lesson that would teach my daughter.  It's easy to quit, but it's harder to persevere in the face of inexperience and adversity.  So, I'm doing it.  I'm taking the lessons I learned from my Community Crops class and moving on.

Here's what we've got going on in the garden:

I've got some baby leaf lettuce and spinach over on the left that I'm trying to salvage from a flea beetle attack.  The next row over are my tomatoes and peppers.  The row after that is half beans/half sunflowers.  And all the way over on the right, I have some multicolored corn, three types of sunflowers and Zinnias.  Oh....and lots of weeds.  You can't miss those suckers.

Here we have some head lettuce that I am bound and determined to eat.  Three little heads is all I have left after transplanting over fifty.  Note to self: transplanting fragile head lettuce transplants in 30 mph wind = not my smartest move.

And here are my two remaining heads of Romaine.  I will eat those things!

And here's the best explanation for my lack of garden work...

I've got an ankle clinger all ready! :)