Gardening update

Tonight, we moved the shepherd's hook that is in our front garden holding the bird feeders and the hanging baskets. You couldn't really see them from the street because of the gladiolus that are growing so tall. I had considered doing away with those at the end of this season because of that, but I have gotten so many compliments on them from my neighbors in the last few days, I don't think I will. We still needed something for the clematis to climb and it didn't seem to like trying to climb the shepherd's hook anyway. So, we got a trellis-type thingy to put there. We moved the hanging baskets over to the side of the garden to add color to that side. It looks good. I'll take pictures soon. It's too dark right now. We are rewarding ourselves with popsicles as I type. It makes it more difficult to type, actually. I have added a picture of the gladiolus as of yesterday. For reference, there is also a picture of me standing behind them. I am 5'1.5" and some of them are taller than me.

We still don't have ripe tomatoes on our tomato plants, but the green tomatoes are pretty big. Does anyone have ripe tomatoes yet? Our green bell peppers are getting pretty big. We already picked 3 jalapenos and have a bunch of blooms on them now. Yay. This is a picture from a couple of weeks ago. I don't know why I haven't taken a more recent picture. All the plants have just about doubled in size. I have been trying to go the "organic route" and I bought this organic fertilizer. I think it is freeze dried poo because p-u! Seriously.

Last Thursday, we took the day off work because we were just exhausted from everything that happened last week with Meme. We slept until we woke up with no alarm. Then, we both went and did things we like to do: Scott went to play disc golf and I went to the Growers Outlet. I couldn't help myself. Last Saturday we went to get a couple of plants to fill in the big pot where a couple of things had died. The lady that runs the place told us that the next Saturday was their last day to be open for two months. I started to feel all nervous like I might be missing out on something that I need. I mean, some of the things I planted weren't doing great, what if I decide to replace them? Plus, I knew things would be super cheap. So, I had to go. I am sure you understand. Anyway, sale is an understatement. I did not pull up anything that was still alive. I am going to let the plants in front of the gladiolus work on growing for the rest of the summer. However, I had planted some calla lilies over on the garden on the other side of the walkway to our front door and they died. I think I should have watered them more. So, I bought 15 new guinea impatiens to put there, then I really wanted something to grow under our tree, but it provides a lot of shade, so I ended up getting 12 caladiums. Plus, I figured I might as well get something to go in front of the canna lilies. I really wanted some daylilies, but they didn't have any. I got 11 dragon wing begonias. I hope that they all do well. So, that is a total of 38 plants. And, these are the "6-packs" you can buy for cheap at the big box stores, these are 2-3 inch pots. My grand total was $15.52! I ended up with too many new guinea impatiens, so I had to create some more container gardens with them. They say that the first step is admitting you have a problems: Hi, my name is Marcy and I am addicted to container gardens! Ha! On the back porch, I now have 10 pots of flowers and 4 potted vegetables. In the front, I have 2 hanging baskets and two potted plants. Um, that's a lot.

Here are the canna lilies and you can see the little dragon wing begonias surrounding them. They are supposed to get pretty big. I really hope they do.

Here's a close up of the begonias.

Here are the caladiums under the tree.

Here are the new guinea impatiens. They are supposed to really fill out too.