A Labour of Love

Last June my parents visited from Toronto. During that time my sweet dad wheeled loads and loads of dirt to our vegetable garden shell. He tirelessly went back and forth for two days straight, never complaining. My parents both have servants hearts and it would have meant as much to him as it did to me. It was already late in the season so I picked up pre-grown vegetables from Home Depot so I could have a resemblance of a garden. We enjoyed the biggest zucchini and cucumbers we had ever seen late into the fall.

This year, we planned ahead and with the help of the girls we were able to plant rows of seeds. Most of our herbs are still intact from last year and the potatoes are growing. Not being much of a farmer I was surprised! I assumed you had to replant everything each year. Guess not? (Let me know in the comments if I just got lucky or if this is a thing!)

We worked together to turn the soil, purchase, and plant the seeds. I'm sure it's not a well laid out garden and we probably put too many seeds in some spots but that's okay with us. We had no rules. We all placed our mark. It was a labour of love.

To mark our vegetables we used paint sticks we picked up for free at our local hardware store and rocks we brought home from the beach last year. The girls painted them using folk art paint and a sharpie to label. I then sprayed them with a clear gloss spray paint to protect them from the elements. Each vegetable marker is unique and made by one of the girls.

We had random posts in our garden that I couldn't remove. I had cut pieces of wood from a past project I never followed through on in the garage. So, I sprayed them with spray paint and hand painted verses and quotes. I debated whether to have an artist friend write them beautifully but decided that it was my hand-writing that I want my kids to remember. I had two extra smaller pieces that we each wrote our names on to mark our vegetable garden; the garden we built together.