The pink hydrangea was given by some of our other neighbors at that same time.  I potted it this year so I can over-winter it in the house and then plant it in the ground next year. **fingers crossed**

I couldn’t help myself at the greenhouse and had to buy the Gerbera Daisy.  I have it in a little galvanized bucket.  Love it!

See the white petunias in the pot next to it. They are some of the ones I started from saved seeds.

This grouping has herbs and flowers. The super full pot I bought at Trader Joe’s. It has rosemary, thyme and some very dead sage. Oops. Forgot to water it for a couple days. It didn’t like that.
See the goofy plant in the yellow pot. It’s rosemary as well. I’ve had it for a few years now. It is the oddest looking thing but it keeps on going. So many people I’ve talked to can’t keep their rosemary growing over winter. For some wonderfully crazy reason…mine does fine. Not pretty but still fine.

Then, of course, we have the volunteer flowers that come up here and there.  My girl pulled this one out from under the edge of the deck. She planted it in our garden box at my urging. We’ll have to see if it lives.

Going around to the front of the house we have a beautiful azalea bush. I can’t take credit for planting it but I’ll certainly take the kudos for nurturing it over the years.  I had lots of comments on it at the garage sale.

I didn’t buy an petunias this year. Every single one I have out is a saved seed from last year. I ended up with white, 3 shades of purple and a purple-n-white edged variety. The funny thing is that I never had any purple last year. They were all hybrid colors last year but no multi-color ones.

We had a garage sale which took up several days. It was very successful. Got rid of the vast majority of things that just had to go. A couple of my neighbors brought stuff as well. It was a HUGE and very eclectic sale. Sorry no pictures of the actual set up. Wish I had but it was so busy there simply wasn’t time!

Since I’ve had no time for any art lately I thought I’d at least give a garden update. Everything is growing so nicely this year. ACK…quick…knock on wood. Can’t jinx myself.

The garden box is so awesome. It holds the moisture so much better than the pots I’ve used in the past.

My herbs and lettuce are also coming along quite nicely. We’ve had one salad from the homegrown lettuce and definitely need to make another to thin it out a bit.

The sun finally came back out and it warm and dry enough to plant my new garden box!

I have 5 tomato plants this year:

• 3 yellow pear shaped (from saved seeds)
• 1 heirloom apparently striped traded with a friend for a little yellow plant
• 1 purchased Big Boy plant

We planted 3 kinds of peppers, chives, french thyme, basil and green onions. Although I don’t have much hope for the onions.

Marigolds are planted along the front edge of the garden to try to detour the bunnies and deer from snacking.

As in previous years, I  have more herbs in containers on the deck as well as this year’s experiment, bib lettuce.

The seeds I started a while back are coming along quite nicely. Not everything sprouted, just as I suspected. That’s fine. The plants that I really wanted did. I’ll have to buy a couple small red tomato plants and a couple peppers. Or possibly trade someone for other plants. We’ll see…

I’ve been wishing for a planter box along the deck. My husband finished it up this past week. We are hopeful that it will produce more on the plants than my old container garden. The cedar lumber and weed block that lines the box cost us nothing, which is awesome! We did have to purchase dirt, of course.

I’ve been setting my seedlings outside for a few hours a day to get them used to being out in the elements. I’ve never tried that before but heard that it’s a good idea.

I’m going to be really interested to see what colors the petunia seeds produce. I’ve heard that collected seeds from hybrids don’t always produce the color of the parent plant.