A busy day in the Garden! (lots of pics)

We got so much accomplished today in the yard and garden. It looks so nice!

(All pics are clickable for a larger view)

*****

Here is a work in progress. We put cardboard and a little bit of landscape fabric down and covered it all with mulch.

Another view.

Yet another view.

Finished!

A view from the window. We left a nice long area along the fence for the pumpkins to grow! We might need to put some edging along it to keep it from washing away!

The zucchini plants!

The watermelon and cucumber plants on the trellis.

A completely new garden! Yes Dave....I am an all or nothing girl! Once I start I want to see the finished product!

I had some extra seedlings waiting around on the patio for somewhere to go and decided to put them in this bare spot out in the back by the fence. Then I layed down more cardboard and put rock around the edge and filled it in with the rest of the mulch. Looks really nice! There are some sugar pumpkins, sebring zucchini and and ambrosia melon in there! And the twins pot of pumpkins they planted!

I do have to say...DH helped with much of this, especially the heavy lifting! Isn't he a keeper!

Welcomed Sight in the Garden

While I was absolutely hesitant to get out in the garden today because it is absolutely disgusting (very wet, hot and humid), I am so glad I did just to see this......

Look at those little Juliet beauties!

You can barely see it, but it is there! A Sebring Zucchini!

And so far I see two 8 ball Zucchinis!

******

This is a picture from the upper window yesterday! We are getting ready to do some work on the area, so maybe I will have a new pic in the next few days of the results! Here's hoping!

That is one big pile of mulch!

(Don't be fooled...it isn't really Scotts Topsoil, they were a mistake so we got them half off! They are full of a nice, fine, light mulch.)

New babies and blooms!

My little bean.....

We just saw his little 4 D face today! The twins said hi and ds said "he needs some toys!" Too cute. Where do they come up with these things!

New babies in the garden...

Isn't this a beautiful sight! First watermelon. Icebox.

First baby Cucumber. American Slicing Genuine.

Isn't this an interesting tomato bloom? This is Prudens Purple. It looks a little different than all the other tomato blooms I have.

Just a pretty Cosmo bloom.

A look at the garden progress

The zucchini's have just went nuts in a very short time. Between the beans and the zucchini the basil is getting buried. I may need to move it.

The watermelon and cucumber are doing great. Some of the other plants are still a bit small for this time, but hey...here's hoping!

The tomatoes in this bed have gone crazy, even burying the gigantic broccoli plant that has not produced anything yet. The basil in this bed is hidden as well.

Today's small harvest. Some wimpy lettuce, and a handful of beans. I had another handful of beans the other day as well, but before I could photo my "first" harvest of the season, my 3 yr old daughter ate them raw! It was cute.

Wanna go white water rafting...in our back yard?

I keep telling myself I am not going to post a blog every single day, but it seems there is always something new to write about! So I hope you find them interesting!

It has been a rainy day to say the least! The front 3/4 of my yard is probably loving it, while the back 1/4 is a mess. Flowing from one end to the other!

It starts here, where the previous owners tried to build some sort of make shift dam! Uhg! It is a mess! It is actually poured in concrete about a foot deep.

Flows down the back of the yard!

Into the neighbors yard!

A view from the upper window.

Now, the neighbors yards are pretty pooled with water too, but not like ours. They have grass or weeds and smooth pools. We on the other hand have a white water river. It flows fast and hard around all those rocks they put in and erodes everything. Under the rocks are two solid (not perforated) parallel drain pipes running the length of the yard.

We have all kinds of ideas about how to fix the problem. One I like is Dave's idea for a rain garden on his blog, The Home Garden: Gardening in the Home Landscape. I am wondering if we could do something similar between the fence and the shed. It is gonna take a lot of work though.

____________________

We have been working on trying to clean this up for two years now. When we started, that whole area from the rocks back was covered in ivy. It was full of bugs that ate you alive and junk. You wouldn't believe the stuff we found buried in there. 5 full unopened bags of topsoil. Some pretty edging bricks, plastic edging and fencing. Lots of broken yard ornaments, and toys. Landscaping wood. None of this you could see until we killed it all and mowed it all down. Boy did the lawn mower like that. We totally needed a new blade after whacking all those metal ornaments we couldn't see. We had no idea what we were getting into when we moved in.
**Before pic of one corner. Doesn't look too bad till you are standing in the middle of it. It is deep.

We tried to save some of the plants that were buried out there that were worth save. This is where some of the hostas came from that we moved to the front and sides.

This is a major project with lots of ideas for impovement. Right now I am just waiting on freecyclers to come pick up all this rock! They never take it all, it is just too much. I have six ppl scheduled to come tonight. Maybe between them all it will mostly be gone!

I'll keep this project updated.

Lily blooms and Hosta's

Last year, my lilies bloomed once in the spring and once in late summer. This totally contradicts what I have read and been told. This year, all the petals have fallen off the blooms and I have this:

This is where the buds started to swell last year for a second set of blooms later in the summer or early fall, can't remember when. So I assume that this will happen again. Now I am confused. Maybe they are some kind of hybrid, but I am gonna have to keep researching and see what I find. And watch the lilies to see if they swell and bloom again this year. They are all the same, they all came from the same bulbs, I separated them myself after finding them hiding in the yard behind a bunch of grape vines and blackberry vines (which we gave away.)

________________________________________________

I also decided to do an experiment for myself. I found these on the hosta's last year and thought they looked like seeds. I wasn't sure since most hostas are not sold by seed, but plants and crowns. So I researched a little and learned these are in fact hosta seeds and I let them go to just the right point. Now I hope that I have not waited to long to try to get them to grow. I put some in some sterile potting soil and have them under the grow lights and I will see what happens. It will be nice if I get some, I have tons of seeds. I bet my mom would like a few!

I will have an update on the hostas as soon as I can.

Blooms in the Garden

First Watermelon blooms!

Don't the Provider beans look lovely!

I also sowed my first carrot seeds today, we'll see if it is too late or not.

And I swear the pumpkin plants look like they have gotten much bigger overnight after giving them a nice drink of Compost Tea! It may be coincidental, but I don't believe so. We tried to plant pumpkins 4 times last year until we finally came up with a solution, and Compost Tea was part of the fix. It helped them to grow faster. We had at least one pretty good size pumpkin last year and three other decent ones.

Does anyone know if this is an Assassin bug?

So I thought this looked like an assassin bug, but I am not really sure...Do you know?

I hope so cause I released it...into the garden!

We finished this bed. This is a different angle. Also has a little Patch Master around it! Hopefully I can get the baby bunny to stop eating the marigolds long enough to get them to grow to more than just stubs! I put some blood meal out yesterday, hope it helps.

I'm so happy with the progress

This bed is the last one to be finished with compost...we still need a couple of bags! Someday we may dare to make our own. But this is looking really nice. I also planted the Arizona Sun Gaillardia in the middle. It looks nice.

Pictures just aren't doing these beds justice. They look so much nicer topped off!

This one is really coming together. I have a mixture of all kinds of things in here...Salvia, Achillea, Marigolds, Cosmos, and a couple of "surprise" Nasturtium! I can't wait till it all starts to fill in and look lush. It will look so nice. The hangers are the Juliet tomatoes.

Another look.

I have some Beans on the plants!!!! Won't be long now!

The Sebring and 8 ball Zucchini are getting bigger, but they do not appear to be vining, I wonder if they are more of a bush variety...

On the left, Ambrosia Melon and Sugar Pumpkin. Giant Atlantic Dill Pumpkins on the right.

Oooooohhhhhh the tea is brewing! Compost Tea that is! Although I forgot the molasses, hope it is still ok. It has some compost and worm castings in it! It will be ready tomorrow! I am soooooo excited! Cheaper tea! It's good stuff!

The trellis is up. The other one is too, but I haven't put the net on yet! Dh did a great job!

Today's pitifully small first harvest....but oh so Good smelling! Spicy bush basil! My favorite! Now I just need some tomatoes and bread! I love bruschetta!

Evening walk in the garden

After I put the kiddos to bed I took a nice little walk around the garden after we have had 2 days of rain totaling almost 4 inches! I just wanted to see how it affected everything, and it seems to be doing great!

Edited to add: I wonder how crazy our neighbors think we are when they see us with cameras wondering around our gardens taking pictures.

These are some new comers, have to find a good spot for them tomorrow. Blanket Flower Arizona Sun (Gaillardia x Grandiflora) and Lantana. I think I will put the Lantana in a corner spot in the sfg.

These are my Juliet Grape tomatoes.

Laura Red Achillea, I like it much better than the Paprika ones I have. Dh brought this one home for me.

Lettuce, it was part of a mix package so I have no idea what kind, but it is doing much better than I thought it would. Though these are the only 3 that made it out of probably 12 that I planted, maybe it is a tougher variety.

Provider beans, they have had blooms on them for a bit now.

Rainbow Chard

Tomato

Sebring and 8 ball zucchini

Tomato and Broccoli

Acorn Squash, just planted it last weekend, looks nice so far.

Icebox Watermelon already taking over other squares, better get that support up tomorrow.

Cilantro

An unfriendly visitor....this thing was HUGE and at least an inch long! He was crunched up with his mouth wide open for this shot. Don't worry, he met his fate! My foot!

Moonbeam Coreopsis. Growing much better than I expected, not a lot of blooms yet, but the plant is getting bigger and that is good!

Tomorrow we will be working in the garden. Getting the rest of the compost down in the back flower beds, maybe planting a couple of things. We definitely need to get the trellis' up for those vining veggies. And we are putting together a compost tea brewer. A fellow garden blogger pointed me to this site for instructions on making one cheap. I have all the supplies and I am ready to start!