More Gardening Glory

We have ripe tomatoes!!

Those of you following my virginal gardening season know how excited I get. (More excited than my son whose idea it was to have a veggie garden as a matter of fact.) You also have read about those pesky squirrels I've been dealing with. Well, while they've helped themselves to a few of the greener tomatoes (and my pepper which was lost a couple of weeks ago) there are PLENTY of tomatoes to go around. So as long as I'm able to keep picking, I will refrain from allowing my husband to purchase a Bebe gun.

I am happy to report, also, that while the previously mentioned squirrels destroyed my lone pepper and annihilated my eggplant even before it had a chance to sprout flowers - it looks like both plants have been given a second chance at life. I have what appear to be a couple of pepper sprouting now (on a couple of plants instead of just the one) and the eggplant is now in bloom with a couple of nice, healthy looking flowers which I hope will bear fruit, er, vegetables.

Yes, I'm a little crazy about this whole gardening thing, but it's been so much fun! I'm already making plans for next year's crops (this from a woman who doesn't eat very many vegetables) and I'm thinking about changing a few things in the yard itself as well.

I never thought I'd love playing in the dirt so much!!!

Our Garden

As those of you who have known me for any length of time can attest, the "domestic" life was always something I said would never appeal to me. I don't cook (except for Kraft macaroni & cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, tacos and occasionally pasta and sauce as long as the sauce is Ragu), my house is clean, but certainly could be cleaner and while I enjoy being a mother, when I was young I used to say that my sister (who loved to babysit and said she was going to be a teacher because she loved kids so much) was going to be my live-in nanny while I went to work in my corporate power suit.

My how things have changed.

Anyone who reads this blog even occasionally knows how I feel about corporate America and, of course, my boys. I love being married. I love my new home. I still don't cook (I leave that to my husband, aka The Chef) and I hate laundry, but I've surprised many with my new found interest in gardening.

Now I wouldn't call myself a gardener just yet. I have stumbled along and I think had a lot of luck. We still have a lot of work to do on our yard and I have plans, but the vegetable garden has come along quite nicely (as you can see). It was the one thing my older son wanted when we told him we were moving into a house and it's actually panning out.

I'm kind of obsessive about the watering thing and I find myself chasing squirrels away on a regular basis. The squirrels have been the worst. They completely annihilated our eggplant, although it seems to be coming back nicely and when I put some sunflowers out the other day it took all of 24 hours for the nasty little critters to eat them. They seem to finally be leaving the vegetables alone, however, and as you can see we've got LOTS of tomatoes and even a pepper!!

I'm like a proud momma talking about it. I just can't believe it really. I thought maybe we'd get something this go around . . . but it's been so exciting to watch the plants grow and we've got LOTS of somethings! I think I'm now more excited than my older son and I think he thinks I'm a little crazy about the whole thing.

Anyway, praise is welcome (for me and the garden). The pictures really don't show just how big the tomato plants have gotten. I'll have to spread them out a little more next year. Next year! I'm already talking about next year!! I'll make a gardener out of myself yet ;)

Mr. Golden Sun

It's been a few days - almost a week actually - but between the nasty spring cold that swept through my family and the beautiful spring/almost summer-like weather we've been having, well, I haven't been spending a lot of time in front of the computer. Yeah for me!!

But I took pictures yesterday of some of the flowers coming up in my garden and I wanted to share. It's a lot of fun really. Being in a new house with a foreign backyard and not knowing what will come up tomorrow or what my yard will look like in two weeks or three weeks or the middle of the summer . . .

I'm not only enjoying the elements of surprise, but the weeding and the watering, too. (Although, it can be a little overwhelming also because there's so much we want to do and we want to do it all at once, but of course we can't do that, so then we have to decide what needs to be done and what can wait . . . I know, I know. Welcome to the land of home ownership!)

The boys are into the gardening, too. We're planning on planting a small vegetable garden (soon) not because my children want to eat the vegetables, but just to grow them. They (as do I, I admit) have an aversion to most things green and leafy. They just want to plant and water the vegetables and then "Daddy can eat them."

Well, I'm being asked to go outside, but before I go I would like to share my bit of knowledge for the day.

Today I learned: I have Delphinium (which I think Shannon told me last week)

And Lilies growing in my backyard :)