We just bought a house! It's a nice house. Because we didn't buy it until March and then we had moving in to do...no garden this year. Too busy.

We have wonderful neighbors. They're "partially" retired. Dave was a Pastor and now he drives many miles to "fill in" for a church that is currently without a Pastor. Therefore, he and his wife have achieved "semi-retired" status in my book.

Dave and Dee have an absolutely beautiful back yard; the kind you find in Better Homes and Gardens. I get alot of advice from them concerning our yard work...pruning roses, trimming hedges and such. The fence you see in the photo separates our yard from theirs.

Last fall (before we bought the house),  Dee threw a squash over near the fence. It's all bidegradeable, right? It'll decompose and be good for the soil. Well, squash has seeds! We are now the proud owners of a beautiful vine that trails almost half the fence. It has tons of squash on it!

The story doesn't end there. Because we homeschool, one more lesson (horticulture) has taken root. We do alot of unit study research and this is great fodder for propogating. Teachable moments are abundant, you just have to capture and harvest them.

Since posting this story, we've done further analysis on some "mysterious" vine crops growing between our garage and shed. We looked it up on the internet and have discovered that we will soon have a crop of watermelons as well!

 The kids threw some seeds out there this spring and voila! Instant garden. Guess I didn't have to worry too much about our lack of a garden this year after all.