Garden Pondering

Look what's growing in my garden now! This cute little guy is a musk melon. I'm not sure I've ever eaten one before but I can't wait to try this one.
Having a garden is a funny thing. I'm sure that there are lot's of people (those who think things through - BORING!) who only plant stuff in their garden that they know they like to eat. I suppose that thre are also people that love all fruits and veggies. I'm neither of those. As I've said before, this garden was a whim.
The funny part of having a garden is that it inspires. Suddenly the family wants to eat more fruits and veggies because we're growing them. There is something special about home grown stuff. Not only are we inspired to eat the stuff we're already growing, we've started to plan an improved version of our garden for next year. Ambitious plans.
This may be influencing our future garden plans a bit.

This is the garden at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Now that's a garden! There's even a sweet little space to sit among the veggies and read a book.
Jefferson had all those rows of nice, neatly arranged plants. The variety was incredible and they were grouped according to the part of the plant that was edible. Nifty!
He planted all kinds of stuff. I took pictures of the artichoke because I'd never seen how one grew before and the peppers because they were just so pretty.
As hubbo and I wandered through the garden feeling like we were going to melt we thought about all of the work it must have taken to maintain a garden like this and the poor slaves who would have been required to do it. One can only imagine how hard it must have been. Even watering the garden would be quite a feat.

We also noted that this garden is terraced much as ours is- only better. It gives one hope to see that a garden can thrive in a space that might not be considered ideal. Next year we hope to use retaining walls and shrub removal to carve out a larger spot for our garden. We got seeds from Monticello to plant so that we can follow the process from the very beginning. A compost program for our house is also in the planning stages. We just need to pick a good spot for our composter and get started. Just think of all the lovely rich soil we'll have for next year.
Sadly we don't have room in our yard for an arbor like this but I can dream.