My wife and I put in a ton of petunias in our flowerboxes Sunday. Last Thursday I cleared out the drainage ditch on one of the roads running by our property (it was filled with 2 years worth of dead leaves, weeds, and Heaven knows what else), tilled the top inch or two of soil up, and then planted a giant bag of wildflower seeds, as well as some tiny fertilizer pellets. It's close to a 30 foot stretch of soil, 2 feet wide at it's smallest and 4 at it's widest, and I was one sore Shadowlander when it was all said and done.

And today I went out and took a look and I have sprouts coming up! Wooty wootage! The bag is supposed to contain 25 different wildflowers (although, interestingly enough, 70% of the bag is some kind of inorganic "filler" ). So, according to the instructions within a few weeks I'll have morning glories, marigolds, black eyed susans, daisies, and a whole host of other things growing in a normally ugly rut on the border of my property, and said flowers are promised to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. This pleases me.

Well I am officially finished planting my personal backyard garden for the year.

Here's what I've got....

Herbs
Lettuce, spinach, mesclun, and mustard greens
Green onions, yellow onions, and white onions
Carrots, beets, and radishes
Green cucumbers
Tomatoes - Black Krim, Juliet Hybrid, Black Pearl, and Honeybunch
Peppers - Flavorburst (a yellow/green bell pepper), Anaheim, Habenero, and 2 Random Hot Peppers
Asparagus
Rhubarb
Strawberries
Blueberries

A few pictures....

I was just curious what everyone's favorite plants. Mine are bleeding hearts, the Latin name escapes me. I am back to working at the greenhouse. I love it!!!!

Mine's the Venus flytrap, I had one once, but it died (Bug infestation, Revenge of the Insects... dum dum dum dum!!!)

Nice pics, fantasia. I'm still amazed you're getting produce already (radishes). It's supposed to snow here tomorrow night, so the gardens are bit behind yours.

Favorite plant? I don't know, there are so many choices. Garden-wise probably tomatoes. I like irises and lilacs for flowering plants. I also enjoy looking at all the wildflowers we have around here, that don't grow in gardens.

Man, I am so itching to move to the country so we can have a nice, biiiig garden again. But that might not be for another decade or so. *sniffs*

Lovely photos, fk! Like stargazer, though, I still am amazed you're getting produce already ... when it's heading down near freezing tonight here, with a chance of frost!

My little Brandywine tomato seeds are all planted, so hopefully we'll be seeing those tiny shoots in the next week or so.

I think I've posted some of my favourite plants here before, but ...
~hyacinth
~amaryllis
~wild flowers of any type
~hibiscus
~lilac
~snapdragons
~peony (I have a story about this one, below)

As for veggies, I especially love the scent of tomato leaves/plants. The taste too! ♥ And raw beans and peas straight from the garden are some of the best! As is much of the harvest. Mmmm ...

I bought a few clematis plants last year—very small. This spring I thought one wasn't going to make it, but sure enough, it has some fresh growth and the other two have numerous buds on them. They're so pretty in bloom. Example 1; Example 2. (These are not mine, but I'm surely hoping mine will look similar as they mature.)

Okay, now my sad peony story. One of my very good friends, Sandy, knew I had been wanting a peony bush for ages, and presented one to me on my birthday a few years ago. It was really prolific and seemed to almost double its growth annually. It was (note the past tense ) so beautiful. Last fall I let the leaves die, and boy, they look so forlorn and icky once they're frozen and brown. Anyway, I had forgotten to cut them down, and they looked like just a bunch of junk sitting there. Well, our son was outside tidying up the fall mess, when, without my knowing, my hubby asked him to get rid of that bunch of stuff in the corner (my peony!!! 'though he didn't realize it!). Well, sadly he complied, and even had to take a spade to it to dig it up: both of them could not figure out what would have taken root like that. They even broke a spade doing it! Don't you think they would have clued in? Anyway, it is kind of a sad story, but we bought another one this spring and will be planting it soon. *sigh* (I still haven't told Sandy. ) And that's my very sad peony story.

I still don't claim to have a green thumb, but my three squash plants are stubbornly proving me wrong.

Squash Blossoms:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y56/starkat23/0510101801b.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y56/starkat23/0510101802.jpg

Squash plants:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y56/starkat23/0510101801a.jpg

My still tiny tomato plant:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y56/starkat23/0510101801.jpg

Last fall I let the leaves die, and boy, they look so forlorn and icky once they're frozen and brown. Anyway, I had forgotten to cut them down, and they looked like just a bunch of junk sitting there. Well, our son was outside tidying up the fall mess, when, without my knowing, my hubby asked him to get rid of that bunch of stuff in the corner (my peony!!! 'though he didn't realize it!). Well, sadly he complied, and even had to take a spade to it to dig it up: both of them could not figure out what would have taken root like that. They even broke a spade doing it! Don't you think they would have clued in? Anyway, it is kind of a sad story, but we bought another one this spring and will be planting it soon. *sigh* (I still haven't told Sandy. ) And that's my very sad peony story.

That sounds like stuff that happens at our house. My dad's method of getting rid of weeds is to spray them. Unfortunately, he doesn't know the difference between a weed and a planet. He killed some of my mom's flowers, my pumpkin plant, and either he or the animals got to my strawberry plant. I don't have the best luck with my garden. I like to grow vegetables - cucumbers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and peppers. A lot of time I plant them in containers. The tomatoes never grow as big as the write ups describe. Last year my pepper planets grew very well but they put most of their energy into getting bigger and I got very few peppers. I had to pick them early because of the weather. (Stupid short growing season). My "cherry" tomatoes plant grew grape tomatoes. One year we kept finding a pepper plant pulled up and dragged a little ways. We kept replanting it but it didn't produce any peppers. My cucumbers don't grow very big either and are usually a little bitter. I suppose part of the problem could be that I only watered them about once a week. I would forget about it until 11 or 12 and then it was too hot to water them. I also heard it isn't good to water them at night so then I would be out of luck until the next day.
Violets are my favorite flowers.

I would forget about it until 11 or 12 and then it was too hot to water them.

I'm convinced this is a myth as I have always watered my garden in the evening and have had great luck. (I'm sure I'd have better luck in the morning, but I never get up that early. )

The last of my indoor plantlings destined to be planted outdoors started coming up today. Okra! (I actually really hate okra, but everybody else loves it soooo *shrug*)

So, your dad has the same problem, eh, Pattertwigs Pal?

I always water our gardens in the evenings (or mornings before the bright light hits them), avoiding, of course, the mid-day sun. I like the evenings, especially, as the cooler night air holds the moisture in the ground to throughout the next day.

Nice about the okra, fantasia! Mainly because I do like okra ... preferably fried.

My mom and I got and planted a red pepper plant, a green pepper plant, a cucumber plant, and a Better Girl (I think that was the name ) tomato plant.

I would forget about it until 11 or 12 and then it was too hot to water them.

I'm convinced this is a myth as I have always watered my garden in the evening and have had great luck. (I'm sure I'd have better luck in the morning, but I never get up that early. )

I always water our gardens in the evenings (or mornings before the bright light hits them), avoiding, of course, the mid-day sun. I like the evenings, especially, as the cooler night air holds the moisture in the ground to throughout the next day.

Well, in that case I'll try watering them in the evening. I wasn't getting up earlier enough either, F_K.

So, your dad has the same problem, eh, Pattertwigs Pal?

Yep. He once announced to a group of people that he couldn't tell the difference between a flower and weed. Then, people kept stopping by when the saw my mom outside to show her the weeds. It drove her nuts. She can tell the difference.

Ah, Pattertwigs Pal. Pity about your dad's flower versus weed issues.

I had the most profitable day today planting flowers, some perennials, as well as annuals. Not being a warm weather person, something that helps me endure it is getting out in the gardens and planting, weeding, fertilizing, watering ... mmm, love it! Once I start planting, though, beware! I get on a roll and can be out there for hours until it's done.

We've started planting our gardens this weekend!

We've got tomatoes, green peppers, multiple kinds of pumpkin and squash, sunflowers, corn, watermelon, and herbs.

We have too Wolfloversk. We are planting tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, and yellow squash!

Every time I keep thinking that I'm done planting, people keep giving me stuff. But the latest plants I've gotten I'm really excited about. My husband works with a guy from Vietnam and he gave my hubby some Korean Melons (I don't think that's the technical name for them, just what he calls them) and he likens them to a cantaloupe except they're about the size of my husband's closed fist.

He also gave us some hot pepper plants. Got those planted too so I'm very excited about them. Now I don't know how many of you have ever eaten at real Oriental restaurants before, but there's American hot and then there's rest of the world hot. So I'm expecting these to be near dynamite. Gonna have to find some recipes to use them in though.

In other news, we got our first zucchinis out of the garden this past weekend. They were quite tasty (for zucchinis ). This next weekend, I will probably be pulling some of the lettuce as it's huge now and replanting that. I'll also probably be replanting some radishes and they're mature and ready to be picked and eaten if that hasn't happened already. The tomatoes are looking unbelievably good and the Bush Early Girl will probably have tomatoes ready for picking/eating in a week or two.