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Blooms and greenery everywhere

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Every time I look out my kitchen window or go into my backyard I’m amazed at how much it’s filled in.

It seems like the plants are growing within hours … not just days! That’s one of the things I love most about Spring – how fast things change and green up.

This is a photo of one of my raised garden beds in the backyard.

The “oval” as I call it separates the patio area from the lawn and garden portion of the backyard.

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There are even more tulips throughout the garden beds than there were when I took that photo.

The Pasque flowers that I have in a very small area near the side of the house are blooming now too. Here’s a shot of a Pasque flower bud. The flower opened and started blooming on Thursday.

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Unfortunately these flowers don’t seem to last very long so I expect they will be finished by sometime early next week. Maybe longer if the cool weather sticks around.

For a peek at my Grape Hyacinth (Muscari) and my Daffodils take a peek at my other blogs.






Mixed results for my veggie growing efforts this year

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Do you grow any vegetables in your garden? I do …

Yeah, I know, I’m always talking about my flowers and other plants and I barely ever mention the fact that I also try to grow vegetables in my garden, amid all of the flowers.

Each year without fail I grow tomatoes (I experiment with different kinds each year this year it was Early Girl, Glam and Tiny Toms), cucumbers, beans, peas, romaine and a variety of lettuces or mescalin mix.

My tomatoes did quite well this year, much better than the last few years anyway. Perhaps that was because I grew varieties that matured earlier. I just love home grown tomatoes. Yum.

tiny tom tomatoes

Tiny Tom Tomatoes

Unfortunately though, my Tiny Tom Tomatoes, Cucumbers and beans didn’t do as well. I grow them in containers on the patio close to the back of the house. I guess I thought that with all of the rain this year that the plants were getting enough water … guess again … they grew very slowly and I think it was because they were too dry overall.

My cucumbers did the worst! They only just started producing tiny cucumbers about two weeks ago! Here’s a tiny one as proof:

tiny cucumber

Tiny Cucumber

If I’d paid more attention and didn’t just assume that the all of the areas of the garden were getting enough water thanks to all the rain we had this summer then I think my cucumbers and beans would have done a lot better.

I guess I learned a lesson this year. Even if it’s rained, always go out and check the soil to see if it really is moist. Plants growing near the house or under the eaves just might not be getting any water at all!

I hope your veggies did better than mine did this summer.

We are going to get the remnants of Hurricane Ike all day today. We are expecting a lot of rain. I mean the kind that causes flooding … and flooded basements! Our basements always been dry, but this might be the test! Hope my home and garden survive all the water we’re about to have dumped on us!

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Want a peek at my garden?

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In the middle of July (July 14th to be exact) I decide to take a couple of shots of the backyard, front yard and my planted boulevard garden. Would you like to see what my garden looks like this year?

Here’s a shot of the backyard:

My backyard garden

It’s not the best shot. We had our patio table umbrella down due to all the rain storms we’ve been having. Our table gets tipsy in the high winds and I don’t feel like going through the pain and expense of having to replace the table glass if it falls, so no umbrella in bad weather! The green tube on the table chairs is for collecting rain run off from the rain spout so that the area closest to the house doesn’t get flooded in a heavy downpour.

The tall tree on the left – well the tallest in our garden – is the Rose of Sharon tree. It’s in full bloom at this very moment, but two weeks ago when I took the picture it was only just starting to develop buds. It’s blooming a little early this year. I’ll get some pictures of it soon!

My box turtles are enjoying a daily snack on the flowers. They are edible. If you have a Rose of Sharon or a Hibiscus bush you might even want to try using the flowers in a salad or as a garnish.

There are a large number of plants in those flower beds! The main plants are of course roses, lavender, salvia, hostas, clematis, balloon flowers and annuals such as petunias and portulaca’s. If you’d like to see a not quite up to date list of all the plants we’re growing in our back, front and boulevard gardens have a peek at my What’s Growing page.

Just click on any of the pictures for a larger view.

I’m pleased with how my front yard is looking so far this year. Our Lab puppy, Midnight, did a lot of damage to the grass in the early spring so we’ve tried to keep her off our tiny front long over the last two months and the grass has been growing back nicely. We helped it out my reseeding of course.

my front yard and garden

Our puppy still tries to bite at the roses, grasses and some of the other plants in the front flower beds as she walks by, but mostly she just sniffs at the plants. It’s quite funny to see her smelling a rose. I think she likes them! At least if she ever tries to eat a rose I know they are non toxic!

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The front boulevard is coming along nicely. I don’t know if you remember my earlier posts about cleaning up the boulevard garden in the spring. We had to remove thick sunflower stalks and lots of weeds before I could plant some new plants this year. It was a mess! It’s nice and tidy now!

planted boulevard

The sunflowers are beginning to bloom as are the pink Dahlia, daylilies, malva and gayfeather. Cosmos have come up this year as well. I haven’t planted cosmos there for at least three years and they were absent the last two, but I guess there were still some viable seeds in the ground and they decided to grow this year so there are cosmo plants scattered among the main plants and they are beginning to bloom now as well.

I have Marigolds and Alyssum planted along the edge of the boulevard and we’ve trained a few Morning Glory vines to grow around the No Parking sign that mars my boulevard garden.  Our neighbors seems to enjoy our planted boulevard quite a bit.

Overall I’m quite pleased with how well my garden is doing this year. It’s been fairly hot this month, yet we’ve had a record amount of rain (and storms!), so the plants are getting lots of water, free nitrogen in the air from all the lightening storms and some good heat to get growing. I actually think I’ve only watered the garden twice this month. Yay! I’m saving money on water too!

I think I’ll make up some of my famous Alfalfa tea later today and let it brew for a week or so. The garden has been doing so well I haven’t thought of using my secret sauce (great organic fertilizer that alfalfa tea is!) on it yet this year, but at least one dose won’t hurt it at all.

How is your garden doing so far this summer? Has the weather been good for it? Have you been getting a lot of rain and like us haven’t had to water much?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

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