Gardens make me happy.

My garden is starting to look like a garden, finally, instead of three burial plots.

Most of my vegetables are up and recognizable, but a couple things are looking like they're not going to sprout, like peppers and spinach. (I should have started both much, much sooner.)

I'm going to take you on a partial tour of the garden today.

Lettuce:

Cucumbers:

Leeks:

Carrots:


And now, we'll move on to the rest of the grounds. Last summer was our first summer in the house, and Bob wanted to let the garden area around the garage do its own thing, so we'd know what we had there. Ooh, boy, did it look junky in all its glory. Tons and tons of weeds, with a few flowers thrown in.

This year, Bob's worked really hard (with the "help" of the girls) to weed the bed and prepare it for new flowers. We left the flowers that were there, of course. And by "we," I mean "Bob."

Some orange lilies:

Pink lilies:

Yellow and red are still waiting to bloom. They're gorgeous. Last year, we put some of the orange & red ones on my father-in-law's grave for Father's Day. I plan to do that again this year, if they're still blooming.

This hydrangea was part of the Easter flower arrangement at my mother-in-law's church. She gave each of the girls a plant, and I put them in the ground in front of the garage. I did a poor job of tending them, and we weren't sure they'd come back ... but they did!

My Mother's Day gift that keeps giving.

2010 is the Year of the Coupon at our house. This tree was free, using a coupon. I thought I'd killed it, leaving it for too long in our refrigerator, and not planting it in a big enough temporary pot. But when I finally put it in the ground, I started really faithfully watering it in, slowly & deeply, so the roots will grow well. And now I'm beginning to see little green buds on what was once a glorified stick. (By the way, these are the first pictures for which I've EVER used the manual focus option on our camera. It's a learning process.)

The first blossom on my new geranium.


The funny thing is, though, that as much as I love plants and flowers, I don't like to have too many in the house. I get overwhelmed by too many houseplants. My kitchen/sunroom have been overrun for months, and I'm dyin'. I'm moving them out. I can't take it anymore. Good thing they can all go outside, this time of year...