How Does Your Garden Grow?

"You want to go look at the garden with me?" I ask Sissy.

As usual, she's the last one to leave the supper table - not because she eats all that much, but because she............ eats......so............very.............slowly.

We walk up to check our little vegetable patch. When I say "little" I'm being generous.
When I say "garden" I'm usually talking to one of the girls, because that's what they insist we call it.
What it is, is one okra plant, two each of tomato, bell pepper, and zucchinni, a teeny lettuce bed, and a very few radishes and sunflowers.

We inspect the leaves for insect damage. So far so good on the tomatoes, but the peppers......

I'm amazed at how much I fret over this 6' x 8' patch of ground. Gardening is not a hobby for worriers. Or maybe the opposite is true, and the garden is a worrier's nirvana. There are just so many unknowns, so much potential for failure here.

Some things you find out by simply waiting.

For example:
Is my cucumber dying? Sadly, yes.

What happens when you wait until mid-May to sow lettuce seed?
You get lettuce!

Other answers you find through reading:

Why did my peppers stop producing just as they were getting started?
Apparently peppers don't like nightime temps below 60 or daytime temps over 85.
We've recently experienced both those extremes, which would explain it.

Some questions remain as yet unanswered:
Did I overprune my tomatoes?
Should I use chemical pesticides?

It's not like I have a lot invested in this , or like I can't get fresh produce elsewhere...... but what if I COULDN'T? What if we had to sustain ourselves on what we grow? Could we hack it?
I read of countless garden enemies..... blight, blossom end rot, powdery mildew, aphids, leafhoppers. My head spins.

And yet......

I show Sissy a tomato the size of her thumbnail, still surrounded by the yellow flower petals. Crouched low, our faces almost touch each other as we admire the little green jewel . "Wow", she says softly. "That's so cool Mommy".

And it is. It's incredible, really. God's design for the tomato, unchanged over thousands of years.

If I could visit any place in history, I think I would have to go to Eden and pick some vegetables.
Sissyand I were so in awe of this little green thing that will grow into something we'll want to eat. I wonder if Adam and Eve ever watched a fruit grow with the same delight? Or because they never knew anything else, was gardening just routine for them?

I can't believe it was. I like to imagine them every now and then discovering a baby tomato, and whispering "Wow".