The Garden

Ok, before I talk about the garden I have to share something interesting I learned today.  I don't know if you've watched any of the World Cup or not but, if you have, you probably noticed the buzzing noise that is the soundtrack for the commentators.  It was driving me crazy (especially because I didn't understand where it came from).  Well, thank you Jonathan Acuff for letting me in on the secret.  Who knew there was an instrument called a Vuvuzela.  Anyway, it's quite interesting (to me at least), but if it's not interesting to you, I would still recommend checking out the Stuff Christians Like blog, because it's awesome.

Ok, so this post is about my garden.  I know, I know.  This is a non-blog about Logan but I am very excited about my garden and I know you MUST want to hear about it (and see pics)!

If you don't already know, my mother's day present from Logan and Mike was supplies to build a raised bed garden.  So that weekend we got all the supplies, built the raised beds, planted plants, and sowed seeds, etc.  It was a lot of hard work but very fun.  We had planned to move the swingset and put the beds back there but when we went out at 10am to put them in, that spot was still in the shade so we ended up putting them on the left side of the house.  It gets plenty of sun.

I have never gardened before in my life and really the extent of my moderately successful experience with plants is limited to a peace lily.  It sits in the dining room and I water it when it starts to look a little droopy. Needless to say, when stuff actually started growing in my garden, I was quite happy!  Logan and I love going out to check on it every day and seeing what's new.

I'm learning all sorts of stuff I never knew before such as.....

Zucchini plants (and actually most plants) flower...

Pretty, huh?  I actually took pictures of the flowers because they were only out in the morning.  I don't know if that's a temperature-related thing or if it does have to do with time of day.  Anyway...there you go.  Zucchini flowers.

Here are a couple more pics of the raised beds.  This is the one in the back if you're facing the house.  It has green and red peppers (which started to do well but not so much the last couple days), zucchini, watermelon, pumpkins (which WILL take over your garden), and strawberries which may be a bust - or I may have just planted them too late.  By the way, I know I probably planted the pumpkins too early but, whatever, I have more seeds to plant later.

This is the front bed (which Logan refers to as "Daddy's Garden").  It actually does have several plants that we bought just for him because he'd like to make homemade salsa.  This bed has rosemary, lavender, tomatoes, banana peppers, and fajita bell peppers (which are a more spicy type of green pepper).  Also, this bed has lettuce, onions, cilantro, and broccoli which I planted from seed.  And they are all growing nicely.  Mike and I actually had our first taste of food from the garden the other day.  We broke off a couple of lettuce leaves and ate them.  Pretty exciting!

Oh, and both beds have marigolds because I hear they're good for attracting good bugs to your plants or bad bugs away from your plants or something like that.  Very scientific really.

Here's a close-up of the 2 tomatoes that are growing.  The one on the right is starting to turn red now and I think the plant has almost doubled in size in about a week.  Hopefully we'll have more tomatoes soon!

So that's the scoop on the garden for now.  Can't wait to be able to eat from it instead of driving to the farmer's market for produce!