Hey all,

It was once again a busy weekend for us and the warm weather is just getting started! My posts might end up coming during the week more but we’ll have to see. This weekend I got the gardens all planted, soaker hoses set up, and the back shared garden fenced. Andrew spent a lot of the weekend playing Destiny’s newly released raid. They apparently come out twice a year and he has a group of friends that works to compete it within the more difficult first 24 hours— I think he had a lot of fun and it seemed to relax him as well! But back to what I was up to: Gardening! As you guys know if you’ve read some of my other posts, I LOVE to garden and grow flowers, vegetables, and herbs. This year Andrew built me beautiful raised bed gardens on the south side of our house, greatly expanding my garden area. We also have a new raised bed on the deck, my marigold planter by the back door, and the garden space we share with our next door neighbors.

Saturday was hot and humid, so naturally I thought what better time to plant than then?! Turns out the answer was Sunday, but that would have involved checking out the weather forecast and I was just too excited. By the end of Saturday morning, the fence was up around our shared garden and everything was planted in the shared garden, my marigold planter, and the deck’s raised bed. Here is the progression of those areas:

These two photos are from laying things out and getting it planted.

Here is the before planting picture of the deck raised bed. Andrew and I found a cedar raised bed that has an irrigation/self watering system in it so we are pretty excited! In here are three basil plants, an oregano, a cilantro and a rosemary.

Below are two photos of my marigold planter (before and after). Although, to be honest Goldy, our pup, is clearly the star of the before photo!

On Saturday, I also planted some of the side of the house, specifically the tomatoes, basil, zucchini and cucumber plant we preordered at the plant sale at the senior center (where I buy most of my plants). But I realized that what I had planted still left me with an 8 foot by 3 foot raised bed to plant! So back to the plant sale I went, where i picked up 4 lemon balm plants to help keep mosquitos away on the deck and a celery plant. I’ve never grown celery before, so we’ll see what happens! My dad suggested I look for broccoli, onions, and cauliflower as well, but the plant sale didn’t have any of those. Off to Menards I went, where I got three broccoli, a package of started onions, and one cauliflower plant to try. Now I’m just hoping the broccolis don’t get wormy or eaten by the rabbits. I also got a new soaker hose since our extended garden space left us one short. It was too hot to keep working outside on Saturday, so the rest of my planting happened Sunday. Can I just say, what a difference the day of the weekend made! Instead of the 80s it was in the 50s. It also was less muggy and buggy! Just crazy!! I’ve posted a LOT of photos of my garden progress here, but I have a few more—check out the lemon balm and side yard garden beds below.

What a busy weekend of planting! Here is what is planted overall between all of the garden spaces:

• 9 tomatoes (multiple varieties)

• 4 basil

• 1 lemon basil

• 1 cilantro

• 1 oregano

• 1 rosemary

• 4 lemon balms

• 12 marigolds

• too many onions to count

• 3 broccoli

• 1 cauliflower

• 1 celery

• 1 zucchini

• 1 cucumber

• 1 sweet banana pepper

• 1 jalapeño

• 1 green bell pepper

• a number of radishes

• 9 bean plants, and

• 5 potatoes

In the garden we share with our neighbors, we are missing 1 cucumber plant, 1 tomato plant, 1 parsley plant, 1 colorful bell pepper plant, some pea plants, and some carrots . Thankfully, I think our neighbor Kathy is going to plant those. After all of that this weekend, I am super sore today! I’m very excited to watch our gardens take off though! I also look forward to being able to share this passion of mine with our future adopted child. Thanks for sticking with this long photo filled post!

~Natalie