In summer, gardeners leave napping to cats.

Bottlebrush Grass

Entry to pond area

Passion Flower Vine

Suckers all over the place-

only for a huge yard or large planters. 

Ours are in large planters.

Healthy pond covered with vegetation

keeping water cool and algae at a minimum.

Back Yard Patio Retreat

Back Yard Deck surrounded

 by

 Spicebushes growing in planters,

resulting in numerous Spicebush Swallowtail Butterflies

flying around the gardens during summertime.

Baby Runner Bean

Hindsight - plant corn two weeks before runner beans

Runner beans looking pitiful - 

Light mulch of wood chips and shredded leaves -

A treatment of liquid organic fertilizer for growth

 of microbes in the soil -

Much better now.

Baby Carrots

Lettuce

Lemon Cucumber

Purslane

an edible succulent from India

that grows only in the compost bins

and cracks in the patio in our yard.

If uprooted, it uses the water in the stems to make seeds.

Explains why so many are growing in my compost bins.

Now they are in the raised beds, and I plan to thin them out

and use for living mulch.  

Native Tall Bellflower

As the gardens mature,

 places for the non-native daylilies

 becomes harder and harder to find.

Some go to neighbors, others to the trash bin.

I keep holding onto as many as I can,

relocating them each year.

Poor babies! 

Michael's and Bryon's Resting Place

in the gardens

Newbie to the gardens -

 impulse buy cause no natives were available

that would fit the bill.

I love single flower roses!

Blueberries that the mockingbirds think

 I planted for them alone.

It's a war to taste any ripe ones before

they vanish down a birds throat.

Green Eyes Wink - super cute name

Entry to Front Gardens

Speedwell

Nameless Purple Spider Daylily - a gift

Orange Vols

Non-native bellflower

THE  END

Gardens...Little Sprouts all in a Row

Lemon Cucumbers

Roodkapje Radishes

Danyelle Red Oakleaf Lettuce

Genovese Basil

Silver Queen White Sweet Corn

Not Above Ground Yet...

Brandywine Pink Tomatoes

Adelaide Baby Carrots

Painted Lady Runner Beans

Raised garden beds silently wait for the birth of life that lies dormant within them.  Filled with the richness of premium garden soil topped off with several inches of homemade compost will satisfy any seedling invited to stay as long as my two arms lug and my two feet convey that watering can from faucet to raised beds to faucet again.

Radishes rush to feel the warm sun first; cucumbers, then basil race to join them...exciting when the seed leaves begin pushing to the surface of the soil and beyond.  They look nothing the same and the size factor is different for each, but their real personality's take over with the appearance of their true leaves.  That's when everyone else knows what was planted if they're big into veggie ID's.

Lettuce is peeking from its hiding place just below the surface and will be joining the others in short time.  Carrots are sleeping in, they don't seem to be early risers...no problem...we know nature will coax them pronto.  Corn shot through the soil yesterday evening, but the green beans will strut their stuff after the newness of the others has worn off a bit.  They know how to make a late entrance after the early sprouts births have faded from memory.

The heirloom Brandywine tomatoes are slumming with the microbes and bacterial life in the static pile compost bin under their protection from harmful diseases.  Soon they will rise and shine also.  It's the beginning of a new day, and all's well in the veggie section of Little Fourth Acre Gardens.

When life disappoints...

I was lied to by someone I care about and I'm swimming around at rock bottom.  I'll get over it, I always do, but not right now.  It's happened before, and even though I think of this person as someone good, I feel it's in their nature to fib a bit to themselves and others as a way of coping with the downsides of life. Bouncing back is always a long time in coming, and it devastates me that this bond of trust between us has been crushed again.

I don't believe in third chances for the same crime, but for some reason this person has received a fourth, fifth, and sixth chance to do it to me again.  I received an apology, but apologies roll off the lips of this person as easily as the lies do.  My feelings have been altered this time around...altered, I think, for good.  

This person is a part of my life and always will be, but I wish to isolate themselves from me.  At first I was going to say isolate myself from them, but I don't take well to the idea of building four walls around me.  I think I would rather build the four walls around them, and leave the roof off so I can peek in once in a while and make sure they are doing as well as they let themselves do.

Sometimes I wish I had planned better for myself, but I didn't; and you know what they say about wishes...all a dime a dozen and a waste of good time.  I'm going outside in the hot humid suck-all-the-life-out-of-you southern June air and plant my veggie seeds in the raised beds, and see if they produce before fall drops all the leaves.

See, I'm still optimistic and a believer in miracles. Sometimes that works in my favor, but sometimes it's a thorn in my side.

Hooked on Mishmash

Where to start...so many beginnings with the endings still to come, and time marching on not caring if I am lagging too far behind or skipping two steps ahead. Time waits for none.  Time catches up with all.  I glance into the mirror on the wall above my wash basin and I'm reminded how the multiple alpha hydrox products I slather onto my face, and the gobs of supplements I pop down my throat are weakening the power of my pocketbook as I continue to inch on towards everlasting memories.  Optimistic; forgetting the number of years my last birthday tallied up to, and looking forward to all the good years ahead is more my cup of tea.

This post may never see that Fourth of July fireworks ending I strive for in any of my endeavors, if my brain keeps refusing to shift up into second gear today.  THE JOB gave me a headache...okay, already !!! I !!! gave myself a headache which has carried on forever.  Rudeness has a hard time rolling off my back into the garbage can where it belongs, as my survival mode kind of drags in that department. When one goes the extra two miles for a customer and their reward is to belittle you as they are walking out the office door (coward!), I find it impossible to give them that financial break that is within my power to dole out.  That perked me up a bit :) but not enough to vanquish that hammer that started pounding in my noggin :(

My gardens give much purpose to my life as idleness is something I only look forward to; you know...a cup of coffee and a book to read as I sit in the shade of the umbrella at the ironwork table on the back deck.  It's never happened.  The weeds thumb their noses at me, the weather chuckles as it knows I'm at its every beck and call, and the newbies I tucked into the ground this spring keep chanting water me water me, I'm wilting.  I love it, because every day I wake up still able to work among the plants, is a day for hallelujahs from on high.

New cast concrete bench in the back yard with the sweet bay magnolia just beyond it.

Sweet Bay Magnolia

It only took 19 years and moving this baby 3 times to make it happy enough to start growing and finally bloom.  Very fragrant...lemony, reminding me of lemon aftershave if I stick my nose right in the flower.

Dense St. Johnswort bush with purple flowers :)

On the arbor

On the grapevine

Above the pond.

Clematis everywhere...Love it!

Back patio vegetable garden raised bed project.  Too expensive, but vegetable gardening has been a desire for years.

Wood Mint

Dwarf Pink Gaura

Indian Pink

Miss Ivy and her sisters are up to no good in the gardens again.

Andee has been heard many late nights wandering aimlessly through the hallway with a little worn out felt mouse clutched between his teeth and yowling so loudly one feels like flinging a shoe his way, but we love him so we don't. I whisper his name and he's soon on the bed keeping me awake a half hour longer enjoying the constant petting he adamantly demands.

Lacey's set up a napping station where the bath towels are conveniently stored, and after picking up the second round of extra towels scattered all over the floor that were in her way, storage elsewhere had to be found.  It's all for Lacy and Lacey for Lacey...that ornery calico ball of mischief.  She's a bit overwhelming in the need to exercise department any time she doesn't have her eyes shut snoozing.  She wants to play, Play, PLAY!