Around the Yard and in my Garden

Hello again my fabulous followers! Can you believe I am posting 2 days in a row? I can't either!

I decided since today was a wonderfully gorgeous day; the first day of summer vacation, I would do a post about some of the things going on in my wonderfully small yard!

BUT FIRST

My last post talked about my view from my front porch. My front porch wraps around one side and that is where I like to sit. I have a full view of the alley way, the empty lot beside us, the main road through town and our wonderful high school, Edward Lee McClain High School. (Some great info about our lovely high school can be found here)

Do you want to see my view?

How is that for you? You can see the railing from  my porch in the foreground, my chain link fence, the alley, the empty lot, the main road, and the wonderful high school....Not too shabby, huh?

My friends, I have been meaning to do a garden update for sooooo long now and I finally got around to taking some pictures of the numerous plants around my yard!

First of all, I want to show you the beautiful little faces of the pansies I potted up early, early this spring. They sit in nice deep red pots on my front porch. Don't you just love their faces?

I also wanted to show you the HUGE spider plant. This is the same plant my mom wanted to just throw out!!! Whenever it produces babies, I pinch them off and put them in the pot. This plant is deliriously happy in this corner of my front porch!

Next we have the poor, poor fern my mom was just letting die. She said she hated that it dropped it's leaves during the cold months and set it out in the cold to die!!! I rescued it and divided it and I thought I had killed it BUT Lo and behold!!!!!!! It is sending off new little baby fern leaves!! It also has its own little corner on my porch during these hot and humid months!

This picture shows a new addition to my yard. I had bought this basket of pansies for $3 on the discount rack at Lowes! I dead headed them and look how beautiful they look just hanging there! (I bought 4 of these baskets, I have two and I gave my mom 2 for her hooks on her porch) I also have a bird feeder on the hook and below I have bulbs of daffodils, some violas, some pansies, and some impatients that my mom had given me.

Now I am moving on to my garden beds. As you all know from last year's gardening posts, I have 3 8 foot by 4 foot by 8 inches deep garden beds all lined up in my side yard. There is 3 feet of space all around the beds. I use the square foot gardening method to grow food for my family.

Here is bed number one! I have snow peas and sweet peas growing up the trellis. I also have cantaloupe and watermelon in between each set of pea plants. I have zucchini and squash plants in the middle of this bed and I have carrots and chives in the front squares.

Garden bed #2. 

I have red and green onion, tomatoes, pumpkins big, small, and white. I also have a variety of peppers. Mixed colored bell peppers, serrano chili peppers, Tequila sunrise hot peppers, and jalapeno peppers. On this end I have broccoli plants.

Garden bed #3

I have Kentucky Wonder Pole beans and cucumber that will grow up the trellis. I have egg plant, some more peppers, spinach, leaf lettuce and iceberg lettuce. I eat salads all the time and I still have tons of lettuce and spinach! I need more recipes :)

This is an existing bed that is along the side of my house, just beyond my garden beds. There were already 2 knockout rose bushes planted here. Last year I put in 2 blackberry bushes. They are growing nicely! I can't wait for some fresh blackberries....YUMMY

In yet another corner of my yard I have this little strawberry patch. I have been able to eat 1 strawberry from this patch. The very first ripe strawberry, my oldest ate and didn't offer me a single bite ;o and the rest has pretty much gone to the roly polys. They love strawberries. I have been treating them with DE (diatomaceous earth). It keeps the bugs away but washes away with rain so I have to keep treating.

Here on this section of my back deck I have my poor little mint plants. They got infested with some little bug so I treated them with Naturia (i think that is what it is called) so they are just starting to perk up gain. I have from l to r: Orange mint, peppermint, and chocolate mint. Before it was infested, I enjoyed using these mints in my warm green tea at night.

Just below my mint I have 2 tomato plants. These the heirloom tomatoes, Mortgage Lifter! I have heard wonderful reviews of them! I also have some basil planted with these tomatoes to keep the BUGS away!

I have tons of herbs in post on my back deck as well. Here you can see l to r: parsley, oregano, chives, and cilantro.

The herbs in this picture are l to r: rosemary, basil, sage, dill, common thyme, and spearmint.

On the upper level of my deck I have some flower seeds planted. From l to r: California Poppy, African Daisy, Jalapeno, Forget Me Not, and Petunia.

Below the flowers on the upper level I have green onions.

Whew I know that is a lot. I didn't photograph my potato bins. I have red and russet potatoes growing as well.

Here is a lovely picture of most of my tiered back deck. This is taken from my back door. It is one of my favorite places to sit.

Oh Yeah! Hanging on hooks on my back deck I have my other basket of petunias and another spider plant.

As everyone who knows me knows, my ultimate goal is to have an edible yard. I want every decorative spot in my yard to be edible. With the exception of a few annuals and bulbs that have been planted.

So what do you all think? 

Hugs and warm wishes to you all!

Erin