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!

A July Storm

Friday afternoon, the weather turned crappy.  There were tornado warnings and sightings in surrounding areas and lots of rain and wind.  I was still at work with about 25 minutes to go when my boss ran out of his office saying there was a funnel cloud to the east of the office building.  It was far enough away to where it was still neat to watch.  All we got at the office was a massive amount of rain and wind, so we were lucky. 


Hard to see, but the funnel cloud is in the middle


I drove home with pounding rain on my windshield about 2 miles before it stopped.  It was sunny and blue skies at home!  But, I soon found out that the wind part of the storm had hit there. 

This is the picture after I rescued my poor flowers that fell off my deck.  Surprisingly, after losing most of the soil and being tossed violently to the ground, they are blooming like crazy now!

This is another poor flower who's petals are all blown off.  My favorite flower, too!

And then there's the garden.  Everything was leaning to the east.

It snapped off 2 of my sunflowers, the rest were just leaning.

Cucumber plants leaning to the east.

But, after all that wind and rain, the garden looks amazing and the flowers are coming back to life.

And this little guy is no longer plastered to our siding.

More pictures of my garden to follow.  I'm excited to show off some fabulous produce and maybe a gardening secret or two!

Enjoy the work week!
A P.S. from yesterday's post -  The best part of the weekend ------ I got to dance with my hubby to our wedding song, "I Get Carried Away" by George Strait, next to the bonfire! Loved it :)