A Walking Tour Around My Vegetable Garden.

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Tour my 40' x 40' community garden plot. No primping, propping, styling or fussing. This is my garden on a typical day. A few weeds thrown on the ground, dirty buckets and a chair that never gets sat in.

Looking back at my vegetable garden post from last week I realized you really have no idea what it's like in my garden. You know what certain areas look like and how my hoop houses work, but I don't feel like the pictures let you know how it feels to be in my garden.

For instance one of the feelings is itchy. More on that later.

In the summer this garden is a huge part of my life. I go there almost every day to check on things, water and just wander around. Which sounds especially relaxing and romantic. I don't want to give you the wrong idea about vegetable gardening. It's not all straw hats and wicker vegetable baskets.

For the first month of the season I spend all of my days off up there planting things and hauling dirt for 8 hours at a time. I've come home on more than one occasion to discover something with legs in my hair. It's dirty and hot and sweaty and you get mosquito bites on your secret bits from weeding in shorts.

In July things are under control. They're a Pinterest picture.

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Then for August, September and October it's back to hauling dirt, bugs in your hair, harvesting, canning and coping. I realize that still sounds kind of relaxing and romantic so I need you to imagine a kitchen filled with hundreds of canning jars, bushels of tomatoes rotting in the corner because you aren't done canning the chili sauce yet and a plot of fresh, sweet corn - half of which has been eaten by raccoons and the other half teaming with corn worms.

None of which you care about because your potatoes need to be dug up, your zucchini has mildew and 14 baskets of cucumbers are going to liquify in your crisper if you don't pickle them soon. Also, you haven't washed your hair in 14 days and someone at the grocery store pointed out an earwig on your collar. So there's that.

I just felt a responsibility to all the vegetable gardeners out there to clarify what vegetable gardening really is before showing you this walking tour of my garden lest you think it's all cedar mulch and songbirds.

Feeling a bit like you wish you'd planted a garden this year? Not to worry. You can still get lettuce, spinach, peas and radishes in. There may also be time for small carrots and beets. Get 'em in the ground and see what happens! That's right. You still have time.

Don't forget some bug spray for your hair and some long pants for your special spots.

Have a good weekend!