Year in Review

The backyard on the side and by the wall in the back did not get enough water this year. I had a hard time growing my ferns and since those are the only things that would grow back there in an area that lacks such light that was a bit disappointing to me, but the soil is clay. I need some compost mixed into it....maybe that would help retain some moisture. I'm hoping that my ferns just went dormant and will come back next spring. I was really hoping for a nice lush fern garden!

My herb pot did really well this year and I wish I could've saved it for next year, but I couldn't keep them going inside the house. There just wasn't enough room for another big pot! Hopefully next year I will be able to find the same herbs to grow and maybe the front porch will be done by then so that I could maybe save my herbs.

The sweet potato vine grew like a weed up front as you saw in previous photos. When I finally cut it back after our first hard frost I found potatoes! I saved those in hopes that I could just plant them next spring.

The garlic was a big small this year, but that was to be expected since I did not plant them last fall (I didn't have any!). So hopefully next year....I'll get some good ones!

I didn't eat any of the tomatoes I grew...the ones that I would eat were the result of weed & feed and I did not want to ingest things grown with that. I did however, try the garlic grown in it since I just had to taste what home grown garlic would taste like after trying to grow them for a few years! It was some STRONG garlic!

The grass I thought looked pretty good this year...it helped that Samba did not run zoomies in it all the time now that he is older and more mature. There were some clover in it, but it fixes nitrogen in the soil so I didn't really mind too much.

I barely made it....I was going to plant the bulbs I forgot to plant yesterday, but I ended up staying out a bit too late and it was too dark and rainy to plant them. Woke up this morning to snow! It's not sticking yet, but it is quite cold. Managed to get my Landini lillies, Moutain bells, Persian Blue Allium, Gladiator Allium and Hyacinth 'Fondant' in the ground! Can't wait to see what it'll look like next spring! Hopefully the chipmunks and squirrels will leave them alone! So far so good with the Alliums I already have along with the lillies so I don't think I will have much of a problem besides running out of space!

I got all my plantings done, did the dishes, doing laundry, changed the water in the aquarium and vacuumed the gravel, fed & bathed Pele, fed Samba, added bonemeal to my garlic, repotted two new orchids that I didn't get around to repotting (good thing I did too the one didn't have much roots left!), answered emails, and hopefully settle into studying some before I have to purchase a new washer & dryer tonight when the deal sets in and I have to pick up my sister's bf from the airport tonight...I need more time in the day!

Garlic Planted!

Last weekend I planted my garlic. The kind John gave me (not sure the variety) and Music, which I got at a local nursery! Music had some HUGE cloves! It was tough finding space for all of it, but I managed to get them all in the ground! Hopefully, next year I will have a HUGE crop of garlic! Some to eat, some to plant, and some to share! :D

Unfortunately, I forgot to plant some other bulbs so hopefully I will get to do that this weekend! We also raked up 6 bags of leaves out of our backyard! Thank god for the leaf blower and mulcher!

Sweet Potato Vine

Check this out! I planted two chartreuse sweet potato vines this past spring and after the frost killed the leaves I cut them back and dug it up and this is what I found! That huge tuber on the left was sticking up about 1/3 of the way. This was not the area where I had planted it. This was part of the vine that had decided to root itself down into the soil and grew this! I am attempting to save them for next spring to be replanted. Hopefully it will work! I could probably divide them with an eye each and get a ton more plants out of it. The two plants got HUGE!

Stinky Ginko Fruit

Wow....when they said that Ginko fruit stinks they weren't kidding! Someone said it stunk like stinky feet and my teacher said it smelled like stinky cheese! It fits the cheese more for sure. How do I know this? I picked up one of those fruits this morning at school. Peeewwwy! It stunk so bad I took it to the bathroom, peeled off the fruit and saved the seed in a paper towel. Then I proceeded to wash my hands real well!!!