Really Cute Invaders

I swear these mushrooms arrived full grown in our back yard over night. How did they grow when everything else is brown and dead? I find them endearing, and now I can't stop thinking about cute little alien invasions!

How does your garden grow?

This morning's rain was an unexpected and quieting way to start the day. It did not help me get to work on time, though, because I spent too long listening to it, staring longingly at it, and figuring out how to take rain-pictures out our front door. Our crepe myrtles have been the last to bloom on the block. At first we were worried, and then we realized that they are just waiting to show everyone else up.

Inspiration

I have gladly left the picture taking to S over the past few years. He has a gently creative and analytical eye. And a really nice camera. But, I am now feeling the need to reach out and learn new things. So I braved the mosquitoes and the water logged Sony to try to document our garden as it is right now.

A sampling of our bounty

I suppose I could have moved the the hose out of the way and removed our impromptu compost pile from the middle of the lawn, but this is how it looks most days. Just trying to go for an honest shot, right? Ignore the bare brown spots on the lawn. It's been the hottest and most dry month in history, or something. Next, I will learn to take pictures before the sun starts to go down! Truthfully, this garden - the zinnias and roses and tomatoes - makes me take a deep breath and take responsibility. And now I know how to download pictures and update the blog all by myself.

and when inspiration finally hits you it barely even breaks your fall

-ani d

Drought

The past two months have been slightly tumultuous at Meadowhill. Both of us have been preoccupied and a little tired. The ground is scorched and thirsty with not enough rain and weeks of 100 degree days. Our inspiration similarly seemed to run dry. But our garden continues to grow and produce and reassure us that everything moves full circle.
Perhaps an update:
I spent a fretful morning in May transplanting my birthday rosebush and then standing around looking at it to make sure it made it through the day. The front two rose bushes look healthy but have momentarily stopped producing roses. The lilies bloomed so wonderfully by our driveway and in the front beds. A lovely purple flower (spider wort?) gave us color by our front steps for the end of May and June. (Everything but the roses are dead now. We really need to clean out the dead leaves to make way for new beginnings and so as not to embarrass our neighbors). We harvested our potato crop between June 7th and 14th and found true bliss in tiny baked potatoes. We harvested our onions around the same time and were so proud of their size. A few bunches of broccoli and two heads of cabbage survived, too, mostly of their own accord. We picked our first striped roma at the end of June. The romas produced early and lots though we haven't had many in the past few weeks. The purple krim came soon after, and that plant has given us an incredible bounty of tomatoes! It is still growing strong. The hillbilly and mortgage lifter started giving us really yummy fruit in July but were hit pretty hard by the heat. The big boys just gave us their first huge red tomato last week. The front cucumber plant actually survived and is officially out of control, climbing up the purple krim and out onto the lawn. The bell pepper plants have struggled a little (or maybe withered due to unintentional neglect on our parts), but the banana and carmen peppers have been amazing. Amazing to the point that I looked up banana pepper recipes on-line. The edamame is tall and strong and continues to look exactly the same day after day with little purple flowers. We have no idea what to do or expect. S is going to do some research so we can be more proactive than just staring at them looking perplexed. But, truthfully, we have just been perplexed in general lately.

Filling in the Spaces

We had a rare Saturday at home together yesterday. We took a walk through Maymont and finally decided to buy a grill. I hung up our first load of laundry on the clothes line (and only had one frustrating incident of the line getting too much slack and dropping dish towels and tank tops in the mulch).

We then spent most of the afternoon working in our garden. We planted three rows of edamame seeds (from mom and dad W), cucumber plants, several sweet basil plants, and marigolds throughout. I planted two different types of Lantana (one white and one red/orange) on separate ends of the garden while S mounded up the potatoes.

We planted more zinnia seeds and promised each other that we would not stomp on them, pick them, or dig them up as we did the first set. I became enamored by wave petunias at a patient's house last week, and bought two purple ones for pots in our backyard. Our little owl finally has a home tucked in between flowers. And, our security kitty prowls the territory and sits guard in between the tomato plants.

Strawberry!

We picked our first strawberry today!

It was the best strawberry that I have ever eaten.

Perhaps one of the smallest, too.

We were so excited about it that we forgot to take a picture of the first one.

Take my word for it, it was awesome