Welcome To My Garden

Dang, y’all. You sure do know how to make me feel good when I reluctantly hit “send” instead of deleting my thoughts. But really, what is the point of having a blog if I don’t post my actual thoughts? Sometimes it just has to be done. And I love the positive feedback, thank you!

So, what did you do this weekend? Here in VA/DC, the weather was off-and-on rainy all weekend, but stayed nice enough that we were able to spend a lot of time outside. It was perfect weather for gardening! Last time I posted about my landscaping, it looked pretty gross. On Saturday, we went to Home Depot and picked up a bunch of plants to get started on our vegetable/herb garden and to brighten up our front stoop.

Here was my vegetable garden in March, just dirt and weeds.

Here’s my garden now:

We’ve got, from left to right, grape tomatoes, two regular tomato plants, and red and green bell peppers:

Next to that, we planted seeds. I am only mildly confident that the seeds will germinate, as I planted them very hastily. I didn’t spread the seeds out properly, so I’m hoping after things germinate (if they germinate), I can thin it out. From left to right, if memory serves me, I planted broccoli, arugula, parsley, and chives.

See that little green plant at the top? That’s crookneck squash. In a month or so, it will be enormous, approximately 3′ across.

In March, I cut my rose plant all the way down because it was out of control, about eight feet high. It was an eyesore. I left nothing but a few 24″ stalks and figured if I “accidentally” killed it, that would be okay.

It looks like this now:

And pretty soon the pink roses will be exploding!

In the luxury spot next to the trash can, I planted basil and cilantro. We nibbled at each of these when we planted them, and it turns out J-Man loves cilantro! He keeps going back and taking “just one more” leaf. I think he may eat the entire plant before it has a chance to start growing!

Basil:

Cilantro:

Last but not least, we have this random bare sunny spot that we’d been thinking we could use as extra garden space.

J-Man saw a watermelon plant at Home Depot and desperately wanted it. It says it needs ten feet of space, so we planted it in the extra spot. Totally haven’t pulled the weeds yet, so we’ll need to do that before it starts spreading. Wouldn’t that be awesome if we actually grew watermelons???

As you can see, we displaced a bunch of red clay to plant the watermelon. Methinks things don’t grow too well in red clay. We’ll find out!

Okay, that’s it for the vegetable garden. All in all, we planted:

• Grape tomatoes
• Regular tomatoes (two kinds)
• Green bell pepper
• Red bell pepper
• Broccoli
• Arugula
• Parsley
• Chives
• Crookneck Squash
• Basil
• Cilantro
• Watermelon

WHOA!!!

Moving on to the non-edibles. My light post in the front yard, in March, with the tulips and lilies just coming up. Oh, and two cute little white flowers. I have no idea what they are. Crocus?

The lightpost now. The tulips have come and gone (only one flowered, booo!), and now we have lilies which are going to flower soon.

Also, last year I planted a clematis because I wanted it to climb up my light post and look pretty. It didn’t take, and I thought it died, but this spring it came back! It’s starting to climb up, and I’m very excited.

And of course, in March, there were all the nasty, dead plants on my front stoop:

(I’m sorry for subjecting you to those images.)

Anything I plant in those large planters quickly dies. We figured the planters were not draining well (we weren’t sure what was in there since they came with the house), so we emptied them out, put gravel and rocks in the bottom, and filled them with treated soil. Then we planted a spiky plant (Husband seems to remember it was called Dracaena?) surrounded by purple and pink petunias.

I love petunias, because they spread, and they keep flowering all summer. I can’t wait until this grows a bit and fills out. I think it’s going to look spectacular!

Last but not least, I want to share with you my irises. My friend Anna gave me some iris bulbs in 2009, a year after I moved into this house and when I was still terrified of planting things. I planted them in November 2009, and totally didn’t expect them to actually grow. Last spring, the green leaves grew, but no flowers. But surprise, this spring they flowered, and they are beautiful!

I love the bluish purple color!

That’s it for now. I’m praying my vegetable garden does well. Last year, we planted green beans, tomatoes, and squash (and attempted carrots which was a FAIL). I’ve never tried to grow so many different things, so I’m really excited!