Garden and Flower Baskets

Last year Jody and Dana bit me with a gardening bug. I tried taking care of the front bed that was already established, some hanging baskets, a little raised vegetable garden, and a new bed with some bushes in it. The baskets and garden did HORRIBLE last year while the front bed did really well. The new bed thrived with some transplanted bushes. This year everything is a big success so far! I've been so excited about it!


I planted all the vegetables, mostly starts, the first weekend in May. Right after, there were 2 nights of hard frost. Half my snap peas and three-quarters of my lettuce was ruined, and one broccoli plant was struggling. Then a cat got in it a dug around in the space that I had planted my carrots. I was so discouraged that didn't even go out there for a couple of weeks to look at it, because I thought everything would die just like it did last year. Well, I was wrong. Some stuff did survive and did really well. I replaced the snap peas and lettuce with new starts, and added some strawberries. Then Bill built me this great green house, which I think has made the garden just take off. This picture was taken 10 days ago, and it has grown a lot even since then. You can't see quite everything from the picture, but here's what I'm growing: 1 zuccini, 2 strawberries, 7 or 8 carrots (originally planted 16, but then the cat came along), 4 broccoli, 8 onions, 8 snap peas, 4 lettuce, and 4 spinach.

Here is some lettuce from the garden. I had originally planted 8 lettuce plants, but 6 died in the frost. The remaining 2 from the original starts are doing really well. I expected the lettuce to look like the heads of lettuce in the store. Jody came over last Wednesday after church, and she said to go ahead and pick the lettuce and eat it. It has made for some tasty salads and lettuce for sandwiches. It is much fresher that anything we get at the grocery store, and lasts a lot longer too!

Last year I thought this flower was a weed and almost dug it up. But Jody quickly told me that it was not a weed, but a peony (I think). Last year it bloomed when I was in the Philippines. But this year I'm staying put, so I'm excited to see what it will look like and smell like once it blooms.

Here are my hanging baskets. Last year I was a terrible failure at all 3 baskets. But I figured out my mistake. I originally got baskets with flowers that liked the sun. This year I found that while there is a lot of sun that shines on the flower bed during the day, the eave of the roof blocks the sun from getting up to the baskets. So I took them back and exchanged them for flower baskets that liked the shade. What a difference it made! I feel so successful now! What I'm not so successful at is knowing what the names of these flowers are. So garden/flower buffs, look at these next few pictures, and if you know the names of the flowers let me know!