Hooray for Rain!!!

I was thrilled to wake up this morning to the sound of rain...this meant I didn't have to get up early to go water the garden (and I was ready for a break!) It's been a long week out there. I have been scrambling to get the rest of the plants in, and weeding relentlessly. Hopefully soon, I can get out there with the oodles of newspaper (now that I have my wheelbarrow back, which has been MIA since we used it at my Gram's last summer to move mulch -YAY!), and then the weeding won't be such a daunting task.
It's been a busy week out there, and things might be starting to settle down for a bit. While I was watering the potatoes, I realized I was missing two cucumber plants (which are in the general area of the cucumbers)...and the bunnies helped themselves to the lettuce -YIKES!! So while I was standing there, hose in hand, wondering where the heck the cucumbers went, I also realized that I was now watering a hole in the ground, and not my precious 'taters.... yuppers...the moles are back and now I think I know what happened to the cukes! So the kids and I hauled off to the store to get batteries for our handy mole repellent posts (generously left to me by my home's former owner). If you have never seen or used such a thing, they are a battery powered device that you bury in the garden. Every so often, they emit an ultrasonic tone that supposedly drives the moles away. We.Shall.See.
We also planted carrot, radish and green onion seeds. Hopefully I remember to thin all of these when they are ready so they actually grow well this time! Later this week,  I will add more basil around the tomatoes - they make good neighbors and the basil helps ward off bugs - and I plan to add more herbs around some of the other plants to help those along as well. If anyone has any brilliant ideas about how to protect the cabbage and cauliflower (that doesn't involve super-toxic chemicals please), I'm all ears! I always have trouble with these ones...
I brought my kids out to the garden to help, or to try and get them to help- the were my anxious little helpers the first year we had a garden, and not so much anymore. They will water the plants most times, but weeding? HA! Planting? Um..maybe...if the wind is blowing the right direction...So, if you happen to scroll through the pictures at the bottom of the page, you will see just how much help they are. Look for the one of my son, the-stick-wielding-crown-wearing (fashioned by his sister)-self-declared-roman-soldier...and you will see exactly how much help I get from these guys! I think all he is missing is the tunic. And Emily ran for the hills as soon as I pulled out the camera.
Despite all the work it takes to get a veggie garden going, I still enjoy it. Every last part of it -the quiet hours I spend out there weeding and digging, planting, tending and harvesting all make it worth while. The excitement of watching the plants grow and discovering new ways to help the garden along are part of the fun. To me, this is nature at one of its finest moments... you plant, you water, you watch and hope, and eventually the little seeds and tiny plants do something wondrous...they somehow work their way out of the dark earth, and without question, they reach for the sky and begin to grow.