Last one to the pickle party is a rotten... pickle. 

That would be me. Pickling is not complicated which is probably why everyone has done it but me. There I was stressing over the details of pickling.

There are about five ingredients. You throw everything together and wait. The internet is loaded with recipes, so I wont bore you with mine. I didn't even follow it anyway. 

As previously mentioned in my posts, I have no expectation of anything I plant, "fix" "prune" or touch in the garden, or in my yard, for that matter, actually surviving or (gasp!) thriving.

Not only am I an inconsistent and sporadically passionately gardener (and blogger), there are many things out of my control that effect the outcome of my garden. Weather, soil, sunlight (I'm in Seattle), slugs and other pests, disease and mold, children, wild animals, domesticated animals, semi-domesticated animals (chickens), irrigation and summer vacation all play an important part.

Spring & Summer of 2013 was a huge step forward for my personal fulfillment in the garden. 

• Plant hop rhizomes 
• Installed a fountain in the now-mature herb garden 
  
• Enjoy the lavender garden, which didn't completely choke
  
• My roses have been producing 
  
• My chickens are all laying and my coop protected the ladies through the winter (there was a bobcat!)
  
• I was able to have two, nice, beefy raised garden beds installed. 

• I built window boxes with my dad (#1 DAD!)
• I also paid my irrigation guys to retrofit my old sprinkler system to spray these two, new beds. 
• Lastly, I bought a single cattle fence panel, clipped off the poky ends and bent it to form an arch. We were able to install it between the beds to make a nice, high arch which now supports pumpkins!!!!

Even if nothing bloomed in the beds, I'd still be winning.

It's amazing to watch these huge, orange pumpkins support their own weight on their vines. We have about 6 pumokins hanging from or sitting on the arch. It's fun to walk under and through. All summer long, we had nice, big snap peas and now, tomorrow is September, the tomatoes have been exploding for a month. I don't even know what to do with all my tomatoes!! They're sweet and small and they make great bruschetta.

My back yard is where I can put all my crazy energy. It's fun and it teaches my kids a lot about food, hard work and how sometimes working looks a lot like playing.

I intentionally didn't sign up for a local CSA farm box delivery for several reasons. The most important reason was my envy of the farmers who, through my rose-colored glasses, were able to spend their days working in the garden. There they were, sipping lemonade in the sunshine, pulling the perfect pickling cucumbers from their perfectly mixed soil. Sick bastards.

The second reason is my universal envy/awe/adoration of and for anyone who has a greener thumb than I do. This pretty much covers everyone, but then, when I'm learning something, it always feel like I'm the last person on earth who doesn't know how to do it.

Sometimes, I'm able to take a CSA box home from work when the original purchaser is out of town. It's then that I look deep into the wax-coated, brown paper box and wonder why they grew weird-shaped onions, one pepper in each color, exactly five potatoes, a melon (I think), a head of cabbage and some mystery greens.

I look at that stuff and I think, "chicken food!" They're gonna love it!

Reason #3 I didn't want to pay for a CSA box is that I don't eat those veggies (there. I said it.) and I don't know what to do with them then they're sitting, limply in a dirty box on my kitchen floor.

However, none of this means that I don't want to, and will not try to grow and eat some of the CSA box veggies next year. And I'm giddy to try different types of tomatoes and potatoes and carrots.

My carrots are tiny. They hate me. But they're so cute! I ate them. My kid smothered them with non-organic Ranch dressing and devoured them.

So, in a reverse kinda way, the CSA box did what it's supposed to. Someone paid the farmers for the box. It wasn't me. Many people ate from the weekly deliveries and if I learned a lot from the two boxes I've brought home, then I can only assume that anyone else who has received a box has been forever changed. CSA farmers are sneaky that way.   

In mid May one afternoon, I was knee-deep in the garden, wearing my ultra-buff-woman Carharts, pulling up some possibly dead tall grass shrub thingy. I equally cursed the previous owners of my landscape while realizing that another grassy plant nearby would make a perfect border.
Thank you Pinterest for identifying the fabulous border plant as a Daylily. I hacked some huge Daylillies apart and made a border for a future, blueberry patch.