Beets!

We pulled up our beet harvest today - our weensy beet harvest.
Granted, we planted them a bit late in the season, and the small hands that planted them put them in the dirt in a slightly crowded jumble.
But there are nearly enough greens to serve with some corn bread and black eyed peas for a dinner and there are nearly enough stunted, tiny beets for a colorful, roasted-root-veggie side dish to accompany some chicken or something equally nice.
And that's enough.
I'm not ready for Big Harvests and Adventures in Canning.
This is how little girls harvest beets - delicately and gently, caring for each wispy root as though it were still needed:

And this is how boys harvest beets - efficiently and in large, muddy clumps, never caring whether a tender leaf is bruised or torn:

These are among the first edible fruits of our gardening. Though it's a only small bit of food, it's exciting - even for 11-year-old boys who try very hard not to be genuinely excited about much. We are learning something nearly every day and now, as our tomatoes and peppers and beans, peas and cucumbers grow and bloom. I can hardly wait for August and September to get here. That's the next shot I get at really planting some stuff! From now until then, it's mostly okra, black eyed peas and squash, from what I understand (which I did go ahead and plant this weekend).


DAILY BLISS: evening coffee & the fun possibilities of paint chips