Garden: week 5

So I'm a little behind on posting pictures of our garden.  I was going to try to update weekly, but three weeks have gone by.  Check out the progress! (weeds included)

Most notably, the zucchini and cucumber plants just exploded last week. All four plants have blooms on them now! (even the shrimpy cucumber plant I thought would die!)

The pepper plants growth seems sort of stunted, but the yellow pepper plant started blooming.  I also noticed some leaves being eaten...but never seen any bugs on the plants.  I'm wondering if these teeny holes could be compliments of our local warren of peter rabbits who keep digging under the fence to get to our yard.

gerber daisies

The wildflower mix that currently looks like a huge weed invasion behind the gerbs started blooming!

The tomatoes are still growing and flowering, but I haven't noticed any little fruits forming.  Anxiously awaiting this!

Last time I promised pictures of the flowers and herbs, and instead of showing you the three week old pictures, I'll just update you with the current state of things.

Here are the back patio herbs.  The biggest pots of mint, a savory herb mix, and the large flower pot, I inherited from a graduating student's wife who is moving away.  So nice to have such mature plants among my little seedlings.

tangled mess of mint

rosemary, sage, and oregano

anyone know what this flower is? ( i think it's the same as the scraggly plant in the front--see below)

basil (also just started to get eaten)

rosemary

sage

i have no idea what this flower is, but I rescued it from a pot in the corner of our backyard and I thought it was just grasses until it bloomed last week!

clearance pansies from Walmart are surviving, but not thriving....

this plant almost died a few weeks ago, but when I repotted it out side it started growing like a weed.  I was beginning to think it was a weed until it started to resemble another gerber

THe back patio (wish we could do more with it!)

the gorgeous (expensive) hydrangeas that I"m paranoid to plant for fear they'll die in the poor drainage soil I have in the garden

All the plants along the front of the house were here when we got here.  I've just started to dead head them in hopes they flower a bit more, since they can bloom for a long season in this weather.

I'm not sure what to do with this mess

although the grasses started to produce little white flowers!

for some reason the geraniums flower heads are three times bigger on the side facing towards the house (the shade?)

and lastly, the rose bushes on the south side of our house. The pink one just started picking up with blooming, but i'm going to fertilize to see if I can get them to fill out a bit more. They haven't been touched in 3+ years!

A little bouquet I made of the geraniums (?) out front and roses a couple weeks ago:

El Jardin

I was talking to my dad last week about about my garden and he told me to post up some pictures!

So here is a tour of our little garden.  I wanted to start small and keep things manageable due to our constraints on time and money.  I also motivated to keep up with it, and enjoy working in it, because it's not too overwhelming or too much work.

The pictures below are from last Sunday, and about two weeks after I planted everything.  I'll try to keep you updated as things progress!

Our soil out here is a mix of very sandy and very clay-ey.  I layed some top soil over the whole plot which was roto-tilled in, and then dug about 8 inches deep and mixed in a mulch type mixer for clay soil where I planted each plant:

Red Pepper

This pepper plant is doing the best of the four of them, and it just happens to be my favorite kind of pepper. I planted these as 4inch seedlings, but was still surprised to see a bloom already!



green pepper


jalapeno



the four of 'em



Cucs





Zucs


the one really sad plant. Can't figure out what's wrong with it. Too much water, not enough? Too much sun, not enough?




I decided to pot my tomatoes because it's a little easier to keep them upright:

Early Girl


Roma



these onions from the grocery store sprouted, so i planted them.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I'm not sure what they'd be good for now.



Wild flower mix just sprouting [in a very uneven pattern]


Next week I'll show you the herbs and flowers!

Young People's Spaghetti Dinner

Last Wednesday, we helped the youth group kids throw their annual fundraising spaghetti dinner.










the sun was streaming in SO brightly through the windows it makes the family in the fron look angelic!

These girls did a great job serving up the spaghetti


Kelli and I cut desserts:



While a couple of the junior girls served them up




As part of the fundraiser,(in addition to taking donations at the door) several of the women in church make dessert specialties that get auctioned off.



In the mix were stroopwafels, banket, mocha cake, caramel corn, chocolate chip cookies, and much more!





The desserts went for hundreds of dollars to some big sweet tooths and the youth managed to raise 25% more than they have in years past!

and Eric egged people on in dessert bidding:



The money goes to the youth groups games, and retreats, but also to their mission trips and care packages sent to an orphanage n Mexico.

I took a video of the kids cleaning up, in case you are interested (which I don't expect you to be, it's not that interesting)