I’m really happy with my gardens this year and wanted to share them with you.

I thought I’d start out my garden tour with the deck. It’s really not that exciting, just a few of flower pots to give a bit of color.

Next we have our first food producing garden area. The Deck Box Garden. This space contains snap peas, carrots, radishes, various herbs, a couple tomatoes that weren’t doing well in the garden and a pot of what will hopefully be some lettuce. I threw in two kinds of flowers seeds after my beets never germinated. I know one was Hollyhocks but the other will just be a surprise. I’ve added some bunting for fun and to keep the deer from snacking. I also have a couple solar starburst lights that my friend sent me for my birthday.

The snap peas are producing but I fear the heat wave that we are experiencing is going to shut them down.

Around the other side of the shed we have the aptly named Shed Garden. It’s only 77 square feet so I try to use it as efficiently as I can while still mostly being able to walk around.

We expanded it last fall to cover the space that the compost bin used to occupy. After my ground wasp fiasco which resulted in a dozen stings, the slaying of the nest and removal of the whole bin, I bought a compost tumbler which I’ve been very happy with. All that to say…the space that the compost once occupied I have only planted sunflowers. I read that sunflowers uptake toxins in the soil naturally “fixing” it for other crops. I’m hopeful that this is true but if nothing else I’ll have a bunch of lovely sunflowers this year.

Speaking of sunflowers…one of my tomatoes seems to be having an identity crisis…

At the top of the main stem it has formed a large cluster of blossoms. I’m not sure what’s going on there so only time will tell.

In addition to the sunflowers I have green and wax beans that I’ve succession planted, 8 varieties of tomatoes, 4 varieties of peppers, yellow summer squash and probably way too many cucumbers.

We save the rainwater off the shed roof. I really enjoy hand watering with my vintage can. It gives me the chance to look at my plants up close and personal.

In the front of the house I have a small food producing container garden as well as pots of flowers that make me happy and bring in the pollinators.

I put together a little pollinator water station the other day from stuff that was kicking around the shed. The saucer is quite shallow so it needs to be filled almost daily which probably works out well since I don’t want mosquitos laying their eggs in it.

I’m loving these hanging baskets.

I found one of my glass mushrooms so I added it to this little wooden planter box.

The nasturtiums are beautiful this year as well. They are planted from seeds I saved from last years plants.

I noticed this volunteer pansy out in front of the pots in the lawn. The funny thing is that I haven’t grown pansies in years!!

This is my next project. I’m going to move the compost tumbler. I think the compost tumbler gets too hot and dries out in it’s current south facing space. I’ll be taking up all the landscape rock as well. I’m planning on a pollinator garden in this space. It’s close to the garden. The composter will have its new home in the nook behind the shed and beside the garden. However none of it will be getting done until this heat breaks though especially since it’s in the sun the vast majority of the day.

That’s all for now. I’m looking forward to sharing the fruits of my labor in later posts.