It's a Garden Party

Kimba over at A Soft Place to Land is holding a garden party. I thought this would be a perfect time to blog about my new vegetable garden.



First off, I should plainly state that I am not a gardener. I've dabbled with some landscaping in the front of my house only because there was none when we moved in. What makes that statement worse is that our house desperately needs landscaping in the front due to the fact that the foundation sticks up about 2.5 feet. Uhhhh-gly. Enough of that though - that's for another post.

What I have done this spring is started a vegetable garden in my backyard. My hubby trimmed back some of the trash trees back in March/April, and while I am appreciative, it brought forth an eye sore that was "magically hidden" behind the trees. I say magically hidden because apparently it's been there the entire time in "plain sight" (says my hubby), but I've just been overlooking it.

Anywho, I discovered that I have a very ugly sewer manhole right along my fence line. What's a girl to do? I can't put anything permanent over it so I decided to do some container gardening.


If you squint hard you can see the edge of the manhole to the right of the tomato plant in the middle of the picture. Unless you knew it was there, however, I don't think it's all that noticeable.

What I have growing:

1. Lots and lots of herbs - Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, & Thyme (and yes, I listed them in that order for a reason - I am a music teacher, you know. :-P ), Sweet Basil, & Italian Oregano.
2. "Homely Homer" tomatoes. And no, I didn't give them that name - that's the name they came with. They're ugly tomatoes, apparently. I have 7 growing right now, but none of them are ripe yet.
   



3. Green Bell Peppers - I have 4 growing right now.



4. Broccoli - I didn't research the sun patterns in my backyard, and I know the whole yard gets a bit of sun and a bit of shade throughout the day, so I didn't want to commit a whole patch of yard to a garden that may not flourish.... so, I didn't actually plant anything in the ground. My broccoli are planted in one of those under the bed storage bins, sans lid. If I do this again next year, I will need to poke some holes in the bottom for drainage. Nothing has died yet from heavy rains/standing water, but.... you never know.



5. Zucchini - I already have one growing! Isn't it cute?



6. Cucumbers & Spaghetti Squash, both growing up the chain-link fence. It has been my daily chore to make sure that the veggies grow up the fence and not through the fence. Our neighbors have a pristine lawn and I would hate to have the little feeler-tentacle-thingies spoiling their yard. No pics of these, but I think I finally have my first spaghetti squash growing. The cucumbers are still MIA.
7. Thistle - What, you don't have thistles in your garden? :-P While I didn't plant this, neither my hubby or I had the heart to mow it over. He's Scottish and our wedding last year had a Scottish theme to it - he was in a kilt and I had (silk) thistles in the flower bouquets. I'll have to post pics of those at a later date. To give some perspective to the picture, though, you should know that the thistle stands about eye level, and I'm 5'9".

Ok, I think I've written waaaay more than I needed to. Oh well. Goodnight. :-)