How Does Your Garden Grow?

Today was a beautiful day in the Seattle area, with reports that the temperatures got as high as the 80's. I don't know if I believe that it was that high, but I'll take it. Lennie and I got up this morning and promptly got to finisihing our master bedroom project. It took us an hour, but we measured and hammered until all of our framed pictures and artwork was masterfully placed around the room. It makes the place feel like a home now, which is very comforting.

Around 11:30 or so, we drove over to Issaquah to enjoy a Georgio's sub sandwich and then to "brave" the crowds at Lowe's so that we could pick up this year's bounty of plants and planters. Surprisingly, the crowd was light, and I was able to skip through the aisles picking out my new flowers and gardening supplies. I tend to get a little "plant fever" this time of year -- thinking that my porch is bigger than it really is, and spending just a little more than I really should on supplies. Lennie kept me in check, and we were off with less than a truck-full of plants. OH, and I should mention that none of the plants were tomatoes or basil, because I already had a farm load of starts from seed that I had planted and have been cultivating over the past few weeks. We'll get to that in a minute.

We then headed to the grocery store for the week's food stuffs, and went home to enjoy the afternoon outside planting in the sunshine... except for the fact that once again I have successfully lost my shovel/trowel for my planting. Scratch that, I have lost both of my shovels this time around. Every year, I place the shovel in the "perfect spot" where I won't lose it, and every year, I can't find it. I think that somewhere, all of my shovels are sitting next to my lost socks laughing at me.

Needless to say, Lennie made another run to the store, and I was back in business. Two large bags of potting soil (and then some) and a few sweaty hours later, I have nine pots of tomatoes (what was I thinking!?!), three railing baskets with flowers, three lavender plants (which wintered beautifully from last year), a hanging basket with fushias, and some new filler plants in the community planters out front.

Here are a few photos of our garden:

I'll keep you posted over the coming months on our progress, as I'm convinced that we're going to be sick of tomatoes before the summer is over... stay tuned on that one!

After dinner, we took one more trip out to brave Walmart to get a few of the last supplies that I needed for our garden -- like more plant stands so that the condo association won't fine us for having pots on the deck surface, and some gardening gloves for future potting sessions. (Side note: I noticed after working with my bare hands for three hours in the soil that the potting soil bag said "Waring: always use gloves when working with this product." Seems that the fertilizer built in to the soil isn't so hot for your hands and/or health. Ooopppsss....)

Anyone want to buy some tomatoes? They'll be fresh off the vine, I promise! Only fertilized with the highest quality fish water, really!