Backyard Update

Sadly, I can’t even get out in the backyard every day to finish my 27 projects.  Slow and steady wins the race. I know. I know.  But slow and steady also leads me into the broiling temperatures of summer in Phoenix. So the pressure is on!

The resurrected gazebo is coming right along…. other than being upside down, on the grass, and not painted. This is the one that flew over the fence and was a mangled mess of canvas and metal. 

My beloved royal blue lobelia are absolutely their happiest right now…. but they won’t last much longer in this heat.

The garden is coming right along…. beans are winning the growing race at the moment, but the zucchini is in a close second.

Lastly, for your viewing pleasure, I scored six of these lovelies at 50% Off Goodwill last Saturday… YES!  Rick scrunched up his nose too at the thought of candles in the backyard, but last night I lit them all and he did think it was lovely, even though he never used the word lovely.

Linda, Linda, Quite Contrary

Garden Update #2.  The good news: Plants are sprouting!!!  The bad news: the dog buried a sock in the green onions.  Boooo!  I’m so impressed with the power in a seed!  Life… all dried up and shriveled… bursting forth into green goodness.  Does my heart SO good.  I go out several times a day and stare at the garden barrels.  Here are some photos to make you purely envious of my amazing gardening ability. (We’ll see if we’re all envious after the Phoenix sun does its duty in June and July!)

That is the spinach popping up their little heads toward the sunlight.

Little peas all straight in rows. (Thankfully I could see those seeds.  The carrots aren’t in straight rows at all.) Next is a cute and dainty green bean doing its thang.

Those pictures were from Saturday.  Here are the pictures from TODAY… only two days later!

Peas on the left and beans on the right.  The no-man’s-land in the center is going to be peas too, but they were planted 4 or 5 days later than the rest.

Bringing up the rear of the photo montage is the two zucchini plants…. soon to be the SOLE zucchini plant.  If you have ever planted and harvested this yummy squash, you know the SECRET to raising zucchini….. you only need ONE plant per family!!!  We learned the hard way, 18 years ago, when there were only two of us and we planted eight zucchini plants.  I believe we lost some friends that summer after we filled their car with the prolific vegetable!  Good times!

Mary Mary Quite Contrary…..

My garden is 67% planted!  Yeah!  I ended up with six half barrels of my magic soil mix…. that includes some empty 2L bottles that I placed in the bottom of the barrels to take up space.  It’s sort of like the bricks in the toilet tank… remember that, anyone? 

I bought one plant, a cherry tomato, and Nora helped me plant it yesterday after the rains came down and the floods came up.  But not a seed found its cozy bed until today… when sunny skies returned to Arizona, and winter is now over.  My rainy day yesterday was spent indoors pouring over gardening books to figure out which plants need full sun, which plant grows with which companion plant, how many seeds to sow in each barrel for each type of plant, etc. etc. etc.  Of course, I drew a plan.  You gotta have a plan!  If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time! (Sorry for all the clichés….. I’m a tad on the tired side.)

And the planting began…. green onions, bell peppers, carrots, spinach, cilantro…..

Yes, those green onion seeds are teeny and hard to plant.  But not NEARLY as hard as the carrot seeds!  I could barely see them, let alone try to pick up two at a time for each of the 96 little holes destined to cultivate Peter Rabbit’s favorite veggie!  Those carrots will NOT be coming up in perfect rows like Mr. McGregor’s garden.  I may have even missed an entire row…… anywho…. the proof will be in the pudding in about two weeks, when they come up and I see what really happened.

The reason I’m only at 67% is because I forgot to soak the peas and zucchini seeds before planting.  They will go in tomorrow with the beans.  More pictures to follow as the joyfulness in my heart grows with each little sprig of green that pushes up through the earth.