And, I started a new medication for the RA! And it made me feel like I could Conquer the World!!!
So naturally, I overdid it.
Today I am suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but this weekend...this weekend was GLORIOUS!
Here is proof:
The Girl and I set out the vegetable garden. While it is only 4' X 8', it does manage to supply us with fresh vegetables all summer and part of the Fall, at least until it burns up due to extreme heat and no rain. This was the first of two photos The Girl wanted taken after we'd accomplished all the planting, sowing, weed matting, and mulching.
We put out tomatoes (5 plants), peppers (2 plants), sugar peas (4 plants), cucumbers (3 hills), lettuce, radishes, spinach, beans and onions. Hard to believe we could fit all of that into my little raised bed, but we did!
The Girl wanted us to squat behind the garden so you could see all of our handiwork. Home Girl (me) don't DO squattin', so I just bent my knees as far as I could and leaned over.
It's awful to have an old mother.
You will note that the yard also suffered greatly because of the drought last year. We have tufts of grass instead of a lawn. And because the tufts of grass were grown up tall the way you see part of them here, I mowed the back yard and the front yard. Hubster raked leaves out for me to mulch, and The Girl picked up sticks.
All this after we'd also cleaned out the flower beds in front from the damage of Drought 2012.
As you can see, just about all that's left are the iris, the daffodils, and an itinerant vine-type thing I propagated from Mom's flower beds. The creeping flox even died, and it's been there in front of the iris (photo just above) for the past 89 years, give or take a hundred years or so.
So now I'm left with practically empty flower beds, a lawn full of tufty grass and bare expanses, and nothing to fill either. Since my thumbs are brown (see first photo) when it comes to growing flowers and grass, what would you suggest I plant? I know I want perennials, but I'm clueless as to what would work. The beds are in full sun most of the day, especially during the afternoon.
Our house faces west, so in the heat of summer everything wilts. The only green thing I tend to be able to grow in the red brick bed is iris, and up until this year, flox. Daisies have done well in the larger beds, and up until this year I had an azalea in one of them. It croaked in the drought as well. Lilies die the death of all deaths and never return. I did have some luck with hostas, again, until this past year. They met their maker in what we lovingly call The Summer of Hell on Earth 2012.
Any and all ideas for how to fill the empty beds are more than welcome!!!
And of course, I have to include a photo of Lizzie the Wonder Dog, all eight pounds of her:
Today I am creaking and groaning, but the weekend was worth it!
1 comment:
Dahlias. They do well and then I would put in stuff like marigolds, because they seed themselves beautifully. Lavender? Roses? Do you get strelitzia?
Your raised bed looks brilliant, and you have so much in it! I am growing a lot of the same things, except the onions. I hate growing things that just produce one thing. Like onions. I love growing french beans and freezing them. Spinach too. And tomatoes. And broad beans. And herbs. Sigh. I just love my garden. My house faces south so the front gets very hot when the sun cares to shine. And my iris love it too. So does the lilac.
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