I spent Monday recovering from the birthday party that was held at my home over the weekend. It was a joy to see my God-daughter Maria and her friends playing in the yard! I'm forever amazed by how little it takes to entertain children and extremely thankful that pinwheels (a personal favorite), bubbles, balloons and open space were sufficient.
Since I've been displaying slacker tendancies lately and took a month to write this post, I can't recall all of the parent's names... ok, I can't recall any of the parents names but they were truly fantastic! I was especially delighted to meet Ben's dad and Emmanuelle's mom. This was the first "kiddie party" (as I like to call them) that Gene & I have hosted. To say we were overwhelmed would be a serious understatement. It appears that Ben's dad is accustomed to working the kiddie party scene and jumped right in upon arrival. He handled the grill, chatted with the other parents, kept an eye on the children and before he left, we even had a few minutes to talk food. Ben's dad was simply the best! Emmanuelle's mom loved my garden and shared a bit about her own garden adventures. I look forward to reconnecting with her soon as I would love to feature her on the blog. Her potato story is definitely worth sharing. It was thrilling to be in the company of someone who has the same garden enthusiasm and veggie love as I do!
By the end of the week, I found a few moments to add some transplants to the garden including tomatoes, habanero and hungarian yellow wax peppers, green peppers, zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, cucumbers, and a variety of herbs. I started by laying everything out and once satisfied with the locations, began planting. I marveled at how much more room I have in the garden due to proper planning. I'm feeling very optimistic about my summer garden and looking forward to growing throughout the remainder of the year.
As it is my desire to help other people's gardens grow, I hopped in the pick up truck and went over to assist my friend Toni with her garden prep. I had a tray of my leftover transplants riding shot gun, windows down and music pumping all the way. We were able to load the truck with compost and peat moss... well, we didn't really load it but Toni paid and I drove the truck, so we're taking the credit. We did have to unload (with the help of Toni's husband) which was comical. Toni selected a few of my transplants and picked up a bevy of other items from the nearby garden center later that day. We didn't plant anything as she wanted to do that with her mom, Ms. Vanessa on Mother's Day which I thought was very sweet.
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| Tomatoes, Peppers & Squash for Toni |
- Week of May 14, 2012
I was out of town all week praying that Gene would water the garden. Better still, I was hoping that he would notice the transplants I purchased over the weekend and keep them in good health until my return. It would have helped if I remembered to tell him this but everytime I thought about it, I wasn't able to call him. When we actually talked, it didn't cross my mind.
While out of town, I also wondered how my sunflowers were doing. When I left the house, most of them had already cracked the surface of their tiny dirt capsules and were reaching for the light. Once back at home, the first thing I noticed were the sunflowers which were now pressed against the lid of the seed starter kit. Since the weather was nice, I grabbed the kit and headed out back to check on the garden. Some of my transplants didn't survive the hot temperatures but others seemed to be doing just fine; I was relieved. After watering everything in sight, I found a spot for my sunflowers to hang out until I was ready to plant them in the garden.
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| Sunflowers at some point before I left the house |
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| Sunflowers when I returned - good googity moogity! |
During the time that I was gone, a little pepper had already formed, a few turnips were ready for picking and the basil had taken a leap towards the sky. My hydrangea were gorgeous to say the least and several other flowers were starting to bloom including daisies, asiatic lillies and day lillies to name a few. I was far happier than what would be considered normal about the progress and thankful that no one was home to witness my exuberant happy dance. Just as quick as I rejoiced, I experienced a major downer upon discovering that my peony bloomed while I was gone... only one flower bloomed but the other two bulbs didn't survive. I couldn't belive that I missed this special moment and was quite upset. I was even more saddened to see that all of my other roses also bloomed and I totally missed it. By this point, the leaves of the peony had started falling off; it definitely wasn't picture worthy. The other roses were in tact but clearly on their way out with most of the beautiful pink flowers beginning to turn brown.
On the up side, I was happy to finally be able to tame the rose monster. I knew that Queen would be excited to have her path cleared and hoped this would keep her from running through my berry patch.
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