Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?

Gardening is something that my mom and I did together when I was younger.  I never thought I would have my own garden one day. 

Last year was the first time I tried out this long lost skill of mine.  Hubby tilled up a spot and manured it and I picked out some random vegetable seeds to plop in the ground.  I should probably explain why I randomly picked seeds.  In our small town, we have sandy soil.  Hubby didn't bring in top soil when he put up the house.  We spent lots of money and time trying to get our front and side yard to grow, so I was pretty sure a garden would be a large FAIL.  I was quite wrong! We had cucumbers and beans and peas coming out of our ears!  It was fantastic to see my hard work come to life.

This year, I was pretty convinced that I could do it again and it would be weedless like last year.  I was partially wrong.  Most of my garden grew, but there were 10 times more weeds.  I do blame this on the late start and all the moisture though.  Hey, we all have to find something to blame things on!  But, in the last 2 weeks, we have had some fairly dry and hot weather.  I fail to find the perfect time to water the garden, so my cucumbers were a little wilty.  I finally decided to I just had to water on Saturday night.  We may have joined some friends at the local watering hole and left the water on.  Let's just say, if the peppers could talk, they would have been shouting "Save us!" 

So, after a few hours of my time spent planting seeds and pulling weeds, I think my time has paid off.

My first good radish! Most of the plants went to seed before producing a large enough radish though.

This year's first kohlrabi!

First time growing peppers! And hubby enjoyed a pepper and summer sausage sandwich today :)

We LOVE cucumber salad! And it looks like we will have more then we can eat again this year!

This is the massive pile of cucumber plants!

My sunflowers.  They are all taller then me now! Can't wait for them to produce!

And this would be the beans....they no longer look like this.  I blame it on the hot weather....GONE

....our beloved peas.  I had 3 that tried to grow, but they gave up....I blame the moisture

So, you saw my vegtable gardening skills, here's a look at my flower garden skills!

This is my hydrangea plant!  I've read that they don't grow so well in ND, but this thing is rockin'!  I killed 2 rose bushes already and my SIL said that roses are hardy in ND.  I beg to differ!  So I will enjoy the beautiful greenish, white flowers that this bush is producing.  I'm stocked to bring some in the house!

Enjoy the nice temps and fresh produce from your gardens!