My Garden - Peppers and Tomatoes Today

Nick is supportive with my gardening. Which is a good thing, because he didn't see very happy a year ago when my parents brought me my first plants in containers.
Nick has been so supportive, he has his own pepper section in the garden.

Initially Nick picked out a nice pot and planted some Habaneros from seed. He didn't tell me what he was planting.

Nick's original Habanero Fire Pot

A couple days later, I got tired of my flooded and dying pepper plants, so I went to the store and bought my own Habaneros. Oops. (This is how they looked a month ago when I bought them, and the picture was taken today.)

My store bought Habaneros

We realized we were going to have a Habanero overdose, and thought it really was too late in the season to start a plant from seed, so Nick gave me his nice big pot for flowers, and moved some of the Habanero dirt inside.

Nick's Habanero's grown from seed (on left) with our kitchen herb garden.

Nick ended up buying more pepper plants from the store, and put them in yellow pots. So far, so good.

Nick's Yellow Pots of Pepper Spiciness
(store bought plants)

The fruit of success
(store bought plants)

As for my tomatoes, they are doing pretty good (except for the weird yellow leaves). I have baby cherry tomatoes and plenty of blooms.

My Garden - Flowers Today

I've been doing so much planting and container buying since April, that I was afraid Nick would stage an intervention for me. I've slowed down a lot, however I did buy another 18" container at Home Depot today. (I needed to buy something, since they gave me a bag full of sawdust for free.)

The spring flowers died back, so I pulled the rest of my tulips and all my hyacinths and daffodils today (which is why I needed sawdust). Since I had space, I planted the rest of my dahlia's and cannas. They recently started coming up, so I'm hoping these last few plants will grow and bloom later this summer.

All in all, my garden has been pretty successful. A lot of my plants grown from seed didn't make it. Some because I moved out too soon (and then there's the peppers I flooded...) and other because I started them too late (and over thinned them, I think). But since this is my first time gardening, I'm very pleased with my plants.

The garden

Flower Boxes

Pots

One of my day lillies

My impatiens (grown from seed)
They are doing a lot better now that I've moved them outside.

My only blooming iris (And it smells so good)

I've been experimenting with several types of annuals: dahlias (from seed), salvia, portcullis, violas, impatiens, double impatiens. My area is on the north side, but there is still a lot of sun. My impatiens are under the porch. Next year I may put more containers up there and plant more impatiens, but I'm not sure yet. I have a double impatiens in the flower box spot that receives the most shade. I've decided that I'm going to go with violas from my primary annual next yet. It is nice and full, and there is a huge variety of color. I will also look into seed dahlia's. My current seed dahlia's are doing well and so far bloom regularly. I also think I can plant a whole lot denser than the directions advise.

This year's perennials have been hyacinth, tulips, daffodils, irises, dutch irises, day lilies, lily of the valley, cannas, freesia, and dahlias (from tuber). The dutch irises and lily of the valley didn't do anything. I haven't seen any freesia yet either. The day lilies blossoms last just that long, a day. So I've been disappointed. I need to learn about more lilies (such as star gazers) and see about growing those instead. I'm also impressed with my tuber dahlia's. They came up pretty quickly after I planted them. I'll have to wait until later in the season, when they bloom, to make up my mind entirely. But I think I'll be adding them as a staple to go with Irises. (Hint, hint, Cooley's would make a fabulous present.)

Gardening - Spring

(These are pictures I originally posted at Facebook.)

Winter was pretty long and hard this year. I did move 4 hours away this past year, and wasn't expecting the climate to change that much. I don't know if it is because I'm 2 hours north, or if it was just a rough year. But I have too say, I was impressed. This was definitely the best winter I've had since we left Alaska in the mid-1990s. By the time Spring came, I was ready to plant. This is the first time I've had a front yard. And while I can't tear up the grass, I did mange to set up a container garden out front.

Here are my tomatoes and peppers, after they were first set out.

The peppers really don't look very good. (They got worse.)

Dirt is fun.

Gardening - Background

For Christmas, Leslie got my dad a book called "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. I started reading it while I was at Leslie's during the holidays, and enjoyed what I read. A few months later, I bought my own copy and read the rest.
I loved it. I call it my hippie book, because it changed my view on food economics, and made me want to run off, live in the woods, and hug trees.
I really can't adopt that lifestyle at this point in my life, but the book did influence me to start my own garden. And in February 2008, I went to the store, bought a bunch of seeds, and started growing peppers and tomatoes. I ended up with way too many seedlings, gave a bunch to coworkers, lost some peppers in my attempt to move them outdoors. (Oops, I should have holes in the bottom of that container.) And now I have some little cherry tomatoes growing on my surviving tomato plants.