Progress

Yesterday, my mom and I spent about 4 hours at The Big Garden (don't you love that I capitalize it?  Like its a real place!)  and got a bunch of weeds pulled, the tomatoes staked and a lot of mulch put down around my vining plants.  I thinned the radishes, the rutabagas and carrots.  That is very tedious work, especially the carrots.  Its like trying to tweeze eyebrows with just your fingers.  Unfortunately, potato bugs have invaded my tiny little potato plants, and I killed a bunch on my tomatoes too.  I also must have killed about 25 cucumber/squash bugs as well.  Somebody told me that Borax mixed with warm water will keep bugs away, so I brought a bottle of that with me and sprayed everything.  We'll see.  And while I brought my camera to record the progress, the memory card was at home on the desk so I didn't get any pictures of the garden. 

But today, I took pictures of The Little Garden (Capitalized again.  Ha ha!).  So here they are:

The plants on the left, in the foreground, are cucumbers and they seem to be doing very well.  There are a few tiny cucumbers on each plant so that's exciting.  At the top of the left picture are 3 tomato plants that I had to bring home from The Big Garden, because the ones I had planted just faded away.  They turned all yellow and died.  I have no idea why they turned yellow.  Maybe I should look it up, perhaps the soil needs amendments.  In the right picture, the peas are really growing.  I even got a harvest from them today.  But hold on to your hats:  you'll be amazed at it. 

Prepare yourself.... 

ready?.....

Wow.  Aren't you blown away? 

And now for some flowers:

Lysimachia                                           Pink Spirea

   Clematis                                           Hollyhocks

Penstemon, Gaillardia, and Valerian.  (At least I think its Valerian..)

This is where a picture does not do justice:  you need to smell this!  Honeysuckle!  This particular plant came from a slip that was taken from the house that I grew up in.  My mom had been growing it at that house for about 50 years.  Its verrrrrrry, hardy.  (Read:  it spreads like wildfire!)

Goatsbeard.  Is it weird that when I walk around the yard, and identify these plants in my head, I say their "real" name too?  Goatsbeard's real name is Aruncus in case you care.  Goatsbeard sounds much prettier.  This grows really well in the shade and gets quite tall.  This year, its about 4 feet tall and gets bigger every year. 

Next year, there'll be a graduation party going on in my yard.  I'm planning ahead so that it'll look gorgeous!

And by the way, I did not just randomly show up at my old house and cut a snip of honeysuckle.  I took it with me when my mom moved.  I didn't want anyone thinking that I was a horticultural thief or anything.  Besides,  I wouldn't post pictures of anything stolen.  Best to hide the evidence, I say.