The Garden...

Bubba and I couldn't really be called gardeners. Quite frankly, if it were completely up to Bubba, we'd have grass right up to the front door...he'd mow it once a week and not look at it again until the next time it needed to be mowed. I'm a wish-I-was-a gardener. I LOVE to read about them...visit them...look at them...PLANT them...but then I just sorta want them to grow and leave me alone and look pretty when I want to look at them.

But I WANT to be one. I WANT to have one. I sorta have this little dream in my head that we could use a garden to be more self-sufficient one day. To those of you who know Bubba and his aversion to things that are now growing or ever have been grown in or near the ground...STOP that giggling...this is MY fantasy...and you never know, we COULD save money growing green beens, snow peas and lettuce...My fantasy really DOESN'T include Bubba EVER eating eggplant, squash, beets or any type of green except iceberg, I promise. But I digress.

Anyway, for the last two years I've had a pretty good (if I do say so myself) little garden. Last year there was a little herb garden in the back under tree house part of the swing set and we had one 4' x 4' other little square foot garden of...well, can you guess??? That's right, green beans.

Also for the last about 5 years Bubba and I have been saving up for some outside stuff for the house...we wanted planter beds in the front...we still want a patio cover on the back and Bubba wants the sun-shade screens and I want honest to goodness outside funiture...heaven SAVE me from the sling back beach chairs that I keep buying.

This year in spring, my dear sweet Bubba, the one who would rather MOW than bother, purchased for my pure joy, stone planter beds for the front of the house. They weren't much to look at in the beginning...I did take pictures of the yard all covered with stone and dust but I can't find it right now.

I REALLY should have taken these pictures about 2 weeks ago when the Cosmos weren't all gray and spent...still look at my glorious garden...



Here are some more pictures of those cosmos...every single one of them grown from cast off flower heads...Not thinking too clearly, I'd been dead-heading directly into the garden. It rained the entire time we were in Colorado seeing the new baby and when we got back over 40 new cosmos plants had grown. I only saved about 20 of them and of that 20 we lost a few to replanting...but MAN do they bloom. It's funny because the little potted plants that they came from really only had 2 or 3 flowers at a time. These plants from seed went CRAZY. At the height of their bloom, a couple weeks ago, I counted 13 on just ONE plant...Now they are a bit spent...we haven't been dead-heading and it's been dipping into the 40s at night, so the leaves have lost their light green...but they are still so pretty...



The extra blooms on flowers from seed seem to be a running theme in my garden this year because these two marigolds ALSO came from seeds. I swiped (with permission) a couple of dead flowers off my neighbor's marigolds (again, little piddly things) and look what they have wrought. I've personally never seen such a bushy marigold with so many blooms as this first one...the second one is smaller...we transplanted it when we transplanted the cosmos and it had a harder go of it...but it still is bigger again by half of the parent plants...



I also discovered that natural remedies work in the garden, too. When I got my planters I KNEW I wanted to grow roses...and not those overblown knock-out roses that everyone grows. Nope, I wanted real and true, cut-em-at-a-five-leaflet roses...more tea roses than hybrids, but if they had the right shape and smell I wasn't terribly picky. The lady at Lowes practically CALLED me a fool and told me I'd better stock up on anti-fungals because once the summer hit I was going to have to dose them every week or so for black spot. "Hmmmm," said my California-city-girl self, "We shall see."

Well Ms. Lowes-lady was not entirely wrong. We did get black spot...and on my favorite peachy rose, too. But it didn't happen until the end of September. When I saw the black spot, I cut that sucker right down to the ground. I'd already been using Peppermint Castile soap and water mixed in a spray bottle for aphids...that works great. I didn't have any commercial anti-fungals but I did have Oil of Oregano in the house (great anti-fungal and all around big dog sickness buster in natural healthcare) so I put a dropperful into the half-full bottle of Soap/Water mix and sprayed everything down really well. And then I kept checking. I'd noticed a couple leaves that were infected on two of the other roses and had sprayed them too, but hadn't cut everything off of them.

Anyway, here is the original rose. It is working beautifully on re-growth, no black spot to be seen...and there isn't any on any of the other roses anymore...no aphids either...I love it when I manage to do something that works...



And here are just some random shots around the garden...be warned...you might see a kid or two..(or ehem, three, if you are counting)



Anyway...so hmmm...guess I at least LOOK like a gardener this year...as long as you don't look at what became of LAST year's gardens...



Just SAD...

See ya around...