Collard Greens, Where??

Five years ago, my husband was begging me to plant vegetables in the front yard.  He was raised with more of a "live off the land" philosophy than me.  I guess that comes with the territory of actually living on a large piece of land.  My family, on the other hand, got our food from the grocery store.  Vegetables came in a can and meat came in a vacuum sealed package.  The closest to a  fresh veggie night we ever experienced was a can brought home straight from the store and "freshly" opened...right from the bag.  Imagine my amazement to find out tomatoes grow on a vine and lettuce in the ground!!  Not really, I wasn't that ignorant to the whole process, but I might as well have been.

After years of persistant begging from the hubbie to convert our front yard into a freak show, combined with  that nagging ache in my gut that I was the worst wife ever for depriving my better half, and a down right lack of money (love the economy), I finally caved.  In the fall of 2008, I had collard greens AND mustard greens in my front yard.  I guess that's what I get for marrying a country boy :) 

For weeks, I found it necessary to point out the greens in our yard to every passer-by, as if my confession was supposed to make me look any less insane.  Hello, world...I HAVE VEGETABLES IN MY FRONT YARD!!  Eventually, I got used to their presence, and was actually enjoying the whole process of walking out to my front yard, clipping some leaves off a few plants, and cooking them.  It was a pretty fun, little novelty.  I soon found myself bragging to passers-by...while I was clipping away.  Hello, world...Don't you just wish you could have VEGETABLES IN YOUR FRONT YARD!!

So, I get this email one day from my oldest daughter's teacher.  The Garden Lady...not the lady that throws fancy tea parties on her perfectly pruned patio surrounded by blooms of various beautiful colors, but an actual gardener...AT THE SCHOOL, was wanting pictures of the students in their own gardens for a contest.  Since I was feeling rather proud of newfound closeness to nature, I sent in a few pics.

Check out my little Farmer Girl. 

Seriously, I'm not sure she had gotten to the "proud" stage yet.  Even a six year old was feeling a little wacky.

I think she may have been a tad bit more excited about the tomatoes seedlings for the spring.   The 36 tomato seedlings!!  I wish I had taken pictures of what 36 adult tomato plants look like in a yard that you can mow with a electric mower.  Seriously, they guy who lived here before us didn't even have a gas powered mower!! 

Anyways...long story short, SHE WON!!!  Probably because we're the only crazies in suburbia to actually have a garden, never mind in our FRONT yard, but I'll just shuffle that thought aside, because my competitive monster (I have so many of those monsters) loves the fact that WE WON!!