Dragonfly Garden

We have been away from the blog for a few days because of a passport crisis. To our dismay, the demand for passports this summer far exceeded the government's expectations and therefore agencies are understaffed and unabled to meet advertised completion dates for passports.

After numerous calls to both of our State Senators, our daugther's passport arrived by FedEx around lunch time, with only 10 days to spare before our trip. (Whew! I faxed letters of thanks to the local Senator offices.)

Frontyard_june

Back to our gardening....this is a snapshot of our front yard from the porch. As you can see, there are 2 shades of mulch, since my husband and I haven't had time to finish layering the lighter colored mulch over the left side. (Passport worries).

The tulips have long since faded away and now the Stargazer lilies and Calla lilies are growing. (In a disorganized pattern, I might add). Remember, we are Newbies at this!

Hubby_frontyard

My hubby transplanted the cucumber seedlings and squash seedlings into larger containers. The photo below shows: Scallions, Chinese Cabbage, Lettuce, Cucumbers (before the transplant), Tomatoes, Eggplant, and Peppers.

For some reason, the Spinach and the Cataloupe never germinated! We're not sure why, but we'll wait until after our 2-week trip to try again.

Seedtray

We combed through Lowes, Home Depot, K-Mart and even our local grocery stores to find some more seeds to plant. The choices are slim. I couldn't find any bok choi or japanese eggplant seeds, so this catalog from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds arrived in the mail today.

I ended up ordering one packet each of: gonzales baby cabbage, baby pakchoi (bok choi), brandywine tomatoes, and sweet broadleaf basil.

I'm looking forward to some tasty stir-fry and summer sandwiches!

Kitchen_garden_seeds

I am so amazed at how quickly these squash seedlings are growing. These are now 7 days old.  We've had to remove them from the covered tray and put them into their own small tray.

They reach towards the direction of the sunlight. (My hubby likes to rotate the tray as you can see here and the following morning the squash seedlings will be pointing towards the window). 

Squash_seedlings_day7

Squash

The picture below is taken at our computer/study room on the 2nd floor. We've filled it with lots of books still waiting for us to read. This is where I blog or catch up with my emails, or do my work from home (when I've had to take work home).

It's a north facing room which catches less sun during the day than our sunny backyard does, so we elected to paint it tropical orange to brighten it up during gloomy winters.

I love to watch the sky change colors and fade into dusk from this window...

Study

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Just 4 days ago we planted lettuce, squash and tomato seeds and placed the peat pot container by the window in our [unused] workout room to take advantage of indirect lighting.

Here, witness the miracle of their sprouting:

Squash_tomato_seedlings

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Lettuce_seedling

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Okay, so here is our weedy, forlorn backyard, as shown from various angles.  These pictures were taken just this morning. Our plan is to kill the clover, dandelions and other patches of ugliness when we return from our trip in July.  Then we'll til the soil and plant grass seed.

Pretty sad looking Yushino Cherry tree...all alone in the weeds...

Backyard_angle1

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Backyward_angle2

Peatpottray

As newbie vegetable gardeners, we've never used peat pots before, but they're supposed to reduce the amount of stress that seedlings undergo when transplanted into the garden. The roots grow through the sheath of peat (which is earth friendly).

To start out, we've planted two pots each of roma tomatoes, black seeded simpson lettuce, dixie hybrid yellow squash and later on in the summer we'll start the pumpkin seedlings so that we'll have jack l' lanterns and pumpkin pie in time for Halloween.

Seeds

Peatpot

We are a husband and wife pair of hobbyist gardeners. The backyard is a sea of weeds at the moment. We concentrated on the front yard when first moving into our home nearly 3 years ago. But we're ready to plow through the back lawn and start choking off the dandelions, etc., in order to make way for a small vegetable garden and an assortment of spring, summer and fall blooming flowers.

A

View of the walkway in front of our home. An unimaginative row of tulips...

B

Another view of the tulips as they bloomed last month along our front yard walk way...

Can you see the wisteria surrounded by pansies at the edge of our lawn?