106 posts
Not too long ago I snapped a picture of a deer that had just wandered out of our backyard.
I had commented on how skinny I thought she was.
Well, she seems to be working on fattening herself up a bit by eating my flowers!!!
She ate the top and one whole side of my strawberry jar of petunias as well as half the leaves off my hostas. I saw her bed in the grass yesterday just outside the landscape rocks. She could just lay there and munch away on a hosta.
Before my garage sale I made some flags from scraps to put up by the street so people would know the sale was here. As it turned out, we had so much stuff the flags weren’t needed. They’ve sat on my sewing machine case until today. I decided to pretty up the garden a bit.
Incidentally…the garden is doing very well. I have green tomatoes on all the plants and a couple yellow pepper on one plant. I’ve been harvesting herbs nearly daily. The lettuce is looking pretty poor but I’m going to try and let it dry out a little more. I think it’s not well enough drained.
I picked up a small stoneware pitcher from a garage sale last week. The lady didn’t want to bargain much with me because she said it was made by a famous MN potter named Robert Briscoe. I’d never heard of him but looked it up when I got home. I paid $5 for it…she said she paid over $30.
Last evening, I went around the yard and picked a pretty bouquet for my new pitcher.
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:
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.
So far we’ve planted:
I plan on starting some more seeds but ran out of little recycled containers and my helper ran out of patience. :)
All of these seeds are ones I’ve collected from last years plants. It should be interesting to see what actually germinates.
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