Garden babies are growing

July in the garden brings on another pace for me. I sort of slow down and look at what is blooming out my kitchen window.

I've hustled through the previous months planting, watering and weeding. The weeding and watering doesn't stop, but on this particular morning, the chores don't seem as demanding.

Sitting under the patio awning I'm placing flower blooms on the paper of phone books. It's time to preserve some of those special blossoms.

Pressing flowers is an old art and I'm hoping an eight-year-old granddaughter learns to enjoy it as much as I do.

At their peak bloom, flowers are clipped and laid carefully between pages of phone books. Books are weighted down for pressing as the pages absorb the moisture. There are flower presses for this art, but I have always used phone books.

It's fun to open the phone book pages to reveal the pressed blooms. I don't use them all yearly and love to open the pages during the winter months.

Harvest has also started in the vegetable garden. Husband has already dug fingerling potatoes only to find they aren't quite large enough.

Oh, the early harvest of vegetables. The veggies seem ever so bright in color and when you bite in to them they have their own delicious flavor that is indescribable.

Veggie gardeners must be patient people to wait for that first red tomato. Of course it's no different in the flower garden as you wait for the first zinnia to open. I've been a not-so-patient parent waiting for statice buds to burst with color.

I started the statice seeds indoor and talked to the little sprouts like they were precious babies emerging into the world.

Each day I was up early checking their progress, watering them, providing just the right amount of time under the grow lights. I was so proud as the plants shot their first set of leaves. I was anxious as days seemed to crawl along as the plants were hardened off for their move outdoors.

Then came their first big steps as they were planted in the garden. How cute they were in their new environment.

I have continued to nurture them protecting them from weeds as stalks of buds shoot up and the first glimpse of color emerges. Finally this past week it was like preschool graduation. I could clip those blooms.

I will be drying the statice to be used for winter bouquets and to hopefully be kept for a number of years.

For now my early blooms are hanging quietly in the dark to dry. They are as precious as a beautiful sleeping baby.

Oh yes, gardeners do baby their plants and revel in their growth. Most gardeners are pleased as can be when they can share photos or their produce with others. We are just like new parents each gardening season.

As the garden season moves through summer, the days change and gardeners continue to enjoy each phase of the season from the seed planting to the anticipated harvest. Yup, its sort of like watching our children growing up as they go off on their own.

As July moves on and we watch the stages of our gardens - vegetables or flowers - we need to slow our pace and enjoy what we have. It's also the time we start thinking about what we will grow next year.

July in the garden, you just have to sit back and enjoy it before it slips away. I hope you get some rainy days and, if you do, remember that I too might be standing looking out my kitchen window at the summer view.