Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Pics of the Garden

For years I wanted to have a large garden, until recently, however, I didn't have a place where I could plant one; now I have an excellent spot for gardening.

Over the last few months, a friend and I have been planting, maintaining and improving this garden. A great deal of work has gone into it and we've found it to be a wonderfully rejuvinating experience.


This is the largest section, it consists of rows of assorted
Tomato (front two rows) and Pepper plants (rear two rows),
a patch of cucumbers (rear left), two and grape vines (back left).




Here is the front flower garden consisting of Begonias
and another flower that I don't remember the name for.


Here is the back flower garden consisting primarily of Marigolds
and a couple of other varieties.


Here is one of the Tomato plants with two plump
Tomatoes about ready to ripen.


This is a view from the opposite end of the largest portion of
the garden; Tomatoes are on the right and peppers are on
the left. There's also an Eggplant growing at
the bottom right of the shot.


This is the Cucumber patch which, after being the laggard for
the first month, is now growing at a nice pace.


This is one of the fastest-producing pepper plants (hot bananna)
which has produced edible food faster than anything else in the garden.


This is a patch of Sunflowers that have grown at a nice pace
with all of the rain we've had in the past couple of weeks.


Arthur is my Feline friend. Sometimes he helps to keep the Birds
from destroying the smaller plants.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What wonderful pictures of your garden! I have to get my husband to snap a few of ours. Actually, I think he did. Perhaps I’ll attach one to this comment, to see if it will go through.

You seem so well ordered! Your tomato plants are all lined up nicely. Do you have trouble with whiteflies? I almost gave up on tomatoes one year, the whiteflies were so thick. Luckily, I found a product on the Internet, which solved my problem. It’s called Bug Away.

I also experimented with grapevines in the past, but I guess our climate is on the cool side and the plant thrived, but didn’t bear fruit. I think it was a Concord grape variety, but then we moved. It was in a huge barrel, so I just left it. Felt guilty about leaving it, but we would have need a crane to move it.
This was before we moved into our house, and I had it planted on the deck.

Since then, I’ve been introduced to horticultural products made by the Advanced Nutrients company, and my plants, both flowers and vegetables, are thriving. I use an organic liquid fertilizer called Organic Iguana Juice Bloom and Grow, made from a fish extract, krill extract, yucca extract, earthworm castings, kelp meal, and alfalfa extract.

Begonias and marigolds are my son’s favorite flowers. We too have a fluffy cat named Lucky, who oversees the garden. On sunny days, he stretches lazily exposing his soft belly to the warming rays. Then he chases a few birds, sometimes catching, but not eating them. We feed him too well.

Do you have any gardening secrets? What do you use to feed your plants? How many hours a day do you spend in your garden? We’re home schooling our son, so I don’t have as much time as all that, but I put my hour or two in before the sun sets. It’s my only form a therapy. How else does one stay sane in this world gone amuck.

Our son is very inquisitive about everything, loves to do science experiments and I tried to get him interested in gardening. He enjoys eating the vegetables and looking at the flowers, but he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty. Just like his father.

I had to ask a younger neighbor to help me dig up some extra ground to plant some rose bushes, since my husband was too busy working on his computer. The ivy on the porch trellises needs pruning, and my butterfly bush is getting too big for the huge pot that it’s in. I don’t think they sell them any bigger than that, might have to put it into the soil.

I do half and half. Some plants seem to thrive better in containers, other prefer to be planted in the ground. My azaleas aren’t doing too well. Neither is my wisteria. I heard an expert on radio say that certain plants shouldn’t be planted too close together, but I forgot what they were. I guess I’ll have to do some research.

Anonymous said...

The pics are great! They look just as good as the real thing! I should know, I've seen it.

Keep it up, I'll post some pics of my garden at the new house when I take some.