Okay friends I finally got my pictures downloaded. I went out and took a few more this morning to go with the ones I had. I really hope you enjoy them. If you have been following along you will see some pretty drastic changes in some of the plants.

It is both fun and amazing to me to watch the plants grow, mature and then produce, whether they are producing vegetables or flowers.

This is the bloom off of one of my Rose Bushes I just got.

I couldn't help but to mess with the picture of my Rose a bit. I often like these altered pictures.

The Radish are coming up very well. I planted them close and a lot of them since the seeds were old and I didn't know for sure if they were any good. So now we are waiting for the second set of leaves to show up so we can thin them out and give them room to grow.

I don't often show pictures of this Loofah bed. It has really stumped me as to why it's not growing as fast as the other bed. We have finally determined that it must be the sun. The other bed gets the morning to noon sun and this one just gets some late afternoon sun. We will work with that theory next year and see if that is what the issue was. The seeds for both beds came out of the same package.

This is our new Green Bean patch. We have really been shocked at the difference in the plants. The two beds we planted first said they were Blue Lake Green Beans as did this one, however, they look nothing alike. It will be interesting to see if the bean production is the same.

I started these Basil plants from seed and boy do they ever take a long time to get going. My theory on these is that it may be a light/soil situation as I have grown them in flower pots before and they grew a lot faster than these are in the garden beds.

We will soon be picking Cucumbers and starting to make pickles. I am shocked at how small some of the plants are and already producing. Normally the plants are much larger than these.

If you have never read about the  health  benefits of eating Cucumbers it is amazing information to have. I look it up again and post a blog on it. There are so many things that Cucumbers doing for our bodies that are just amazing!

There are little Cucumbers like this scattered all through the three beds that we have this year.

This bed of Cucumbers has already started their climbing. I just love this idea as it will keep me off the ground looking for them, I will be able to walk up to/or under the arch and pick the Cucumbers as they are ready.

I took this picture to show you how far they are getting up the arch. It won't be long and they will be over the tops.

I was happy this picture turned out so clear. Here you can see the bloom that will eventually become a cucumber and you can also see that this branch has already stretched his little "arm" our and wrapped around the arch to support itself.

This came out a bit fuzzy but hopefully you can see this tiny baby cucumber just starting to grow.

This is a picture of the Loofah bed that gets the morning sun. As you can see there is a huge difference in the size of these plants and the ones that are only getting afternoon sun.

The wind was blowing on the plants today making it a bit hard to get a good picture. The little green "blob" you see in the middle of the picture is the start of a Green Bell Pepper.

While "they" say we should not still be getting Asparagus, we are! Once they were salted and then water very heavy every night they just started going crazy and have not stopped coming up yet.

This is what the Asparagus will look like if you don't pick it. It will grow out like this, then produce seeds, drop them and they will start as plants. This is how these beds get so large. I was concerned that a lot of my seeds were falling into the yard so I picked off of the seed pods and brought then in the house. Slowly they are drying out and I'm removing the seeds so I can take them back out and put them in the bed. We are really looking at growing this patch as big as we can.

The Tomatoes just continue to get bigger and bigger with no signs of turning red yet. We have been getting Cherry Tomatoes already but these monsters just don't seem to be done growing.

This is another one of the large Tomatoes. It appears that all the tomatoes on these plants will end up being huge like this. I sure hope the plants can support them, we have done everything we can to help the plants with the weight they are causing on the branches.

Here are a few of the tomatoes in the middle of the plants. They are not as big as the others............yet.

I know many people do not like Marigolds but I just love them. I have these in and around the garden beds as the aroma of them keep bugs and rabbits and deer away from your garden. We live out in the country and we have no problems with animals getting into our beds.

This is my Mr.Magoo Tomato. LOL. I just love to look at him everyday. It really does look like the profile of Mr. Magoo to me.

This photo is showing 4 of the Rose Bushes I got at Wal Mart the other day for a $1.25 each.

The two plants on the left are more of the Rose Bushes I got and the plant on the left is a Hibicus that I got on sale at Ace Hardware for $3. These plant sales are driving me bananas, I'm starting to have to really think about where to put them.

This is a bloom off of one of the new Rose Bushes also. Very pretty indeed and they smell so wonderful.

This is a plant our daughter picked out to help attract the Hummingbirds. I've seen these in lots of color variations but this might just be the prettiest one I've ever seen.

Those are all the pictures I have for now. I'll try to get out this evening and get pictures of the Blackberry and Grape Bushes so you can see them. While this summer, in our area, has been so dry that we have to water everyday for the most part the plants are doing very well. Some of them show signs of suffering a bit, a few dry leaves here or there but for as dry and hot as it has been here we are pleased with how they have been doing.

If you have never had a garden or think that you don't have room for one I really suggest that you look into raised bed gardens. They are so easy to maintain, they take up a 4ft x 4ft area and can really kick some produce out. Even if you have never had a garden before it is a fun thing to have and do and honestly, it really relieves a lot of my stress to go out and work in my garden. Whether I'm working with the flowers or the vegatable I learn something new everyday at these miracle plants God made for us.

Have a great day!

Sorry I didn't get the pictures posted last night. A strong desire to go night fishing was more than we could handle, so we headed out and had a great time. The only thing that would have made the night better would be if we would have caught something bigger than a minnow. LOL. The Cats were nibbling but that is about it. I think even for the fish it was just to hot. We were shocked at how much the water has receded, we sure do need some rain.

When I get home from the sale I promise I will be the updated garden pictures and the pictures of our Roses we got such a great deal on loaded for your viewing pleasure.

I hope you all have a great day!

Oh I can't wait til this evening! I have a few pictures on my camera to share with you but one that I'm just in love with!

One of the Rose Bushes I got last night had a bloom open up on it today. It is such a deep deep blood red, and right through the middle of each petal is a pure snow white line. It' so hard to explain and make it sound as beautiful as it is. When you see the pictures you will understand what I'm saying.

Sadly enough the other wonderful thing about it is how good that rose smells. I nearly just buried my face in it so that I could smell that heavenly scent every time I took a breath.

I so can't wait to share it with you all tonight! Be sure to come back and have a look!

Just isn't bad for a $1.25 Rose Bush!

Roses, Roses and More Roses

I have to tell you that I don't really understand what is going on in many of our store locations, but I'm sure lovin it!

It seems to me summer and planting have really just started, there is so much warm weather ahead of us to be working on gardens and flower beds yet everywhere I turn stores are putting plants on clearance like they are expecting a snow storm tomorrow.

Past my not understanding, it has turned out really well for us. I love the Double Knock Out Rose Bushes, they are so easy to care for and just put out tons of blooms at a time. I'm fairly certain I have put pictures of my Rose Bush on here but will double check. If I haven't I will.

While wondering around in Wal Mart yesterday I noticed they had the Double Knock Out Roses on clearance. I nearly fell over at the price of only $4.49 each, so I bought another one. Then later that day I found myself back in the store for something and just had to go look at the roses again. Well the dept head was in there when I decided that I must have one more. She proceeded to tell me she just had to get rid of those things and if I would buy at least one more she would take half off the sale price making them $2.25 each or really buying one at the regular sale price and then getting another free. So yes indeed I walked out with 2 more, quite happy.

Well we went back tonight to pick up a few grocery items and of course I had to go look again. If I could keep a Fern alive I would have gotten several of them. They were huge, so large in fact that I believe with my limitations I would have had a hard time trying to get one in a cart. On sale $2.50 each. WHAT THE DEVIL I said to myself.

Then I rounded the corner and saw the large Rose Bushes, you know they great big REAL roses. The sale  price on them was $3.49 each, but they also were marking them in half again. I don't do math in my head very fast but I can see this is quite the deal,so in the cart goes 2 Pink, 2 Red and 2 white...I just about split I was so happy, then when I get to the register the young man tells me that half of that is $1.25 WHAT, You got it man, I nearly ran him over to go get more but I'm certain my husband was standing their poised to trip me if I tried. LOL. He has been great about all the plant buying, primarily since I keep seeking out sales, but 6 for one trip was his limit. Aside from that we were in our car and had to figure out how to put 6 thorny plants that are about half my height in the back seat and not use our daughter (she is 11) as  pin cushion on the 5 mile ride home. LOL.

We managed to get everyone home safe and sound...........now I'm on hte search for large containers to put my bushes in. They are not allowed to be in our nasty ol clay soil here. They get nice big pots with compost and peat moss and all the yummy stuff they love that will make them grow like crazy.

It was 107 here today so my garden walk this morning and evening were quick to get done what I needed and get back inside. I will try to get pictures of all the rose bushes tomorrow. They are in need of love but they show a great deal of promise.

Happy Gardening to Everyone!

Evening Garden Walk, Getting the Garden Arch Set Up

I know this will be a huge surprise to those of you who read my blog on a regular basis, but this evening while working in the garden and spending some time outside I was able to capture what I believe are some really neat garden photos. I also have a few pictures showing more progress in upgrading our garden to what we want it to be for next year. The thought of it is so exciting to me, I keep thinking of all the great foods we will have and all the people in our community we can share it with without trying to charge them a fortune for something just because we can label it organic.

I know several people in the area that go to the Amish vegetable auction and buy all their produce there in large quantities and then do more than double the price of it and resell it to people in town. I'm not against making a profit but I am against setting a price so high that you are ripping people off. We are not supposed to treat one another in that manner, those who do that are no better than the big box stores like Wal Mart. I won't ever be accused of that or of treating someone in an  unfair manner. I wouldn't want someone to do that to me and I'm not about to do that to others. While the garden extras if there are any will mainly be my husband and daughter doing that, I will be in charge of getting help and getting things canned and put away for us and our families for the winter.

Okay so here we go with the photos. I know a lot of you are reading my blog and I would really appreciate any comments you would like to leave.

The Tomato plant below has had some kind of history already this summer. We nearly lost this one because we had to wait so long to get them out and planted. We were having unreal amounts of rain in this area. This particular plant just has not reached the height of what it should be in fact it is about a third the size of all the other Tomato plants.

Not to be outdone by the bigger plants this tiny Tomato plant is a giant producer. Check out the photo below. I tried counting them all and came up with forty six tomatoes on this one tiny plant.

The photo below is showing you some of the branches on a Tomato plant. Some of these are what they call suckers others are just the lower branches of the plant. We try very hard to keep the suckers pinched off so they don't take away from the producing branches, we also remove several of the lower branches. This enables us to see under the plant for weeds, makes watering the plants easier and it is better for the plant. There is no sense in the plant wasting energy or resources trying to keep those branches alive when MOST of the time they are non producing branches. Now having said that we have several plants this year that are  producing on all branches.

If you remove these suckers or lower branches there is a wonderful thing you can do with them.

The picture below shows the branches removed. If I were to now take those in the house and put them in a jar of water in just a few days time they would put out an amazing amount of roots and therefore be viable Tomato plant that you could turn around and plant in your garden. It will grow and produce tomatoes just like the mother plant they came off of.

The next two photos are showing the tops of my Dill plants. They have gone crazy and will soon be ready to use in canning. I put out a set number of canning jars, depending on the number of cucumbers I am working with. I take an educated guess. I put all the seasonings and the entire top (the part that is yellow for now) in the bottom on the jar. Then I proceed to put the spears in the jar, packing them in as tight as I possibly can. These dill "heads" will make our dill pickles taste 100% better. Not to mention the fact that I love to look at them, they are such a bright yellow and very dainty looking, I almost hate to tear them up to use them they are that pretty.

This is my amazing husband. He works more than full days away from home, often going in early and working overtime. Once he gets home one would think he would just sit back and relax for the evening to be rested for the next day, he does not. He realized that despite the heat I was outside this afternoon trying to get a few little odd jobs done and he was right out there with me and started trimming around all the garden boxes. I love how "kept" they look when the grass and trimming has been done.

I noticed this evening that my Rose Bush is putting out new leaves. Upon close inspection I saw that the new leaves are coming out a very dark shade of red and then once they start to mature they turn green like all the others. I don't know how useful that information is but it is just a neat thing to know.

As I told you a few days ago we got another garden box started. In this box we put Carrots, Radish and Parsley. The Radish had to show the others up, it waited til day two and you could just see them starting to break through the soil. The picture below shows them at day three. There is going to be a lot of thinning and moving plants within the next few days. Some things are okay to plant close together but the Radish and Carrot are not. They each need space to produce and grow, in a over crowded situation as they are at present would stunt the growth and if you got anything out of them they would be s small they wouldn't be worth dealing with.

This is the new Green Bean box we started oh...just over a week ago, it appears ninety nine percent of the plants did come up, so that is great. It will take some time for them to be ready and start producing beans but that is perfectly okay in this household. We try to stagger things as much as we can so that we are not trying to can three or four different veggies at the same time.

The next four pictures are just flowers from the box we have under the Hummingbird feeder. They are such a cheap flower and they will not come back next year. Maybe it is their simple beauty that attracts me to them but every time I'm outside with my camera I manage to stop and take pictures of them. They are growing well and starting to fill the box up. Some were laughing at me when I first planted them because there was so much open space and the dirt was showing through. Well needless to say they are no longer laughing at me as the box is nearly full now. They are fast growers.

I couldn't help but to add another picture of the Bat plant. It is simply amazing how much each bloom looks just like a mini bat. It working with my plant this evening and removing the dried out blooms I was able to locate what I believe to be the seed pods for this plant. If that is the case by summer next there will be a lot of Bat plants around our house. LOL.

In this photo you can see all the new growth around this small pink blossomed flower. It is a mixture of wild flower seeds. Oh it's so like Christmas just watching them grow, assuring they are watered every evening and just taking care of them, yet you have no idea what they will end up being. I certainly am excited about this and can't wait to see what they become.

I've got to do some research on this and see if my guess is correct. This is the top of one of my Lillie's, I am assuming this to be some sort of a seed pod since this flower is very well known for reproducing itself. I removed one a week or so ago and looked inside and it didn't appear to be seeds to me. On the other hand I haven't a clue one what a Lilly plant seed looks like. So again we play the waiting game to watch and learn. 

This pictures helps to show what I was talking about earlier. With the mowing and weed eating done the entire area just looks so manicured. I've often heard people make remarks about farmers, their homes and gardens etc. While we are working on ours for a personal goal I know many farm family yards that would put city yards to shame. Of course since I'm a country type person and I grew up on  my parents farm, my opinion might be a bit jaded, but I don't think so. 

I'm super excited about this. We got this Garden Archway Entrance  at Lowe's last year on clearance. (I love a sale) and couldn't decide where we wanted to put it. Now that the choice has been made Wally needs a few things to complete this task but it should be up soon. I told him unless he has a reason or a plant he likes better I want to get a climbing Rose bush and start it on one side and just let it grow up and over the arch. I think that would be so beautiful!

Canned Peaches and Green Beans

Today has been such a great day! I was a little run down early this morning so my mom and daughter chased me out of the kitchen to go take a little nap. When I got up they had washed up the few dirty dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. That's better than getting a dozen roses in my book.

After that we started working on canning. Mom and daughter pealed and cut the peaches in half and put them in water with lemon juice in it. Then when they were done we packed them into jars and poured a mixture of water and sugar over them. This will make the syrup as they can and wait to be eaten this winter. Since these were such sweet peaches I was able to use a very light syrup which makes me even happier, that uses a lot less sugar.

While they were working on that I washed and snapped Green Beans. One they were done I filled the jars, put some salt in each jar (don't use table salt, either Kosher or Canning salt is needed) then filled each jar with water, put their flats and lids on and they were ready to go.

These two things don't take long in a cool bath canner so it was no time at all when I had 6 quarts of Peaches and 3 quarts of Green Beans canned and cooling.

It doesn't seem like much but each and every jar means another I don't have to buy from the store. Another jar that I know exactly what is inside of it and another jar that doesn't have ingredient names so long that you need to be a scientist to read them.