Our garden

Shawn has done a garden for the past 2 years. The first garden that he ever did was in 1996. He loved doing it. Our squash plants got so huge, and our squash got so big. I didn't think they were suppose to get that big, but you couldn't tell him that. I mean, HUGE!! The next year, I went to HEB and bought a squash, and brought it home. I told him his squash needed to be that big only. He grew them right after that. When we moved to our house on Ethel Blvd. we couldn't have a garden. We could've I suppose, but the dirt in the backyard was horrible. Shawn didn't want to have to mess with it just yet. 5 years later we sold the house, and never once did he plant a garden. The year we moved here, Shawn's dad had somewhat of a garden in my backyard, and Shawn did not like that. He surveyed the land, and decided that part of the front pasture could be turned into a beautiful garden. Shawn, Josh and his dad went to work over the fall/winter months to have the garden plot ready. By Spring of 2006, it was ready to be planted. We had a good crop of squashes, watermelon, tomatoes, peppers, onions, corn and purple hull peas. This year, about 1/2 of tomato plants have died, and Shawn has replanted them. He also planted 50+ blackberry stalks last year, and this year they are beautiful plants, and we have tons and tons of blackberries. As I type this, I am making another blackberry cobbler. See why I can't loose weight? And what has to go on blackberry cobbler? Vanilla ice cream of course! Anyway, so we have more squashes growing, and have had a few zuchinni here and there, but not as many as yellow squash. The other day I made zuchinni nut bread, and oh my gosh it was good. My kids loved it...only because I told them at first it was banana bread, and once they were done with it, and told me how good it was, did I tell them it was zuchinni bread. Only Kayley knew it wasn't (banana bread) because she helped me make it. I made a yellow squash bake today that they sell at the Black-eyed Pea, and it was really yummy. Don't know if I will make it much again, but it was good and it used up 5 lbs of squash. I froze 1/2 of a 9x12 pan of it. I've already froze about 7 lbs of squash as well. We are hoping for a good crop of purple hull peas. What are those, you ask? Well, they are like black-eye peas, but aren't. Shawn's mom makes them during the winter months with a ham-hock and corn bread, but this fall, after spending hours and hours picking them, washing them, freezing them (Lauren & Kayley helped with all of it), we lost it all. Shawn's mom had them in the deep-freeze, and Shawn's dad unplugged the freezer months later to use the plug, and forgot to plug it back in. About a week later or so Shawn's mom and Kayley goes to the freezer (this freezer is in the outside storage room, BTW), and they noticed the smell. Let's just keep it at that. Shawn's mom got a new freezer for Christmas from her children.