Queen Anne's Lace and Lilacs

How Does Our Garden Grow?

Pathetically!  For the past couple of summers, Tim and I have grown tomatoes.  Now, I don't exactly have a green thumb, but, how hard can it be to grow those things??!!  My parents grow them, and they go wild!  Well, apparently, it's not easy as pie.  Part of the problem is that we have a zillion trees.  I don't think there's any place on our property that gets more than four hours of sunlight a day.  One of these spots is on our deck, which is where we've placed the two big pots of tomatoes:  One for regular, big, fat tomatoes; the other for cherry tomatoes. 

Last year, we grew two regular tomato plants in the same place, same pots.  The results weren't great.  I think we harvested five or six medium (small?) tomatoes.  But, we had mistakenly planted them together and then had to separate them half-way through, so I was hoping that was the problem.  The plants themselves looked great, considering they were in pots.  Nothing messed with them.  They grew to about six feet tall, looked pretty and full, just not many tomatoes.

This spring, which was cooler for a longer period of time - and something that ate both tomato plants down to nubs - didn't do us any favors.  I never saw what it was that ate the plants, but our Westie, Purl, was sick whenever the plants were eaten, so I figured it was her.  Finally, after it started warming up, the plants were left alone and left to grow. 

Neither plant has grown as tall as the ones last year.  We had only ONE regular tomato (medium sized) to harvest and maybe 10 cherry tomatoes (including the four that are on there right now).  Last weekend, I considered picking our one tomato, but for some reason, I forgot about it.  Yesterday morning, I was here at my desk, looking out over the deck.  I saw a flash of red in the corner of my eye.  I looked up, and there in the tree was a squirrel - eating my only tomato!!!  Yeah, he enjoyed that thing for about 10 minutes.  Couldn't believe it.  While he was eating, another squirrel scampered over to the pots.  It was then that he discovered his friend had made off with the only available tomato (click photo for larger view).   

I am determined to grow a decent crop of tomatoes.  I'm thinking of trying the hanging basket tomatoes next year.  Now, if I could find some decent sunlight.  And lose some squirrels. 

It's Spring...

...and I couldn't be happier!  To celebrate Spring and Easter, we made our annual trek to the garden shops for flowers (OK, so Tim made the annual trek - I don't have a problem giving credit where it is due).  Tim brought home some beautiful flowers, tomato plants, and a few herbs.  This year, I'm having mostly pinks, with other colors thrown in occasionally.  We'll be growing (hopefully) geraniums, impatiens, petunias, snapdragons, and some flowers whose names I don't even know. 

This also, even more happily, coincides with Evan's being here, and he is my planter.  He doesn't exactly love doing it, but he doesn't get as upset as Brett does (you know he's always had an issue with putting his hands in dirt, so it isn't a surprise).  Let the planting commence!  (Click on photos for a larger view.)

Bethany, and her friend, Bethany, went to see "Horton Hears a Who" this afternoon.  When they got home, they were quite excited that we would, indeed, have the egg coloring.  They spent some time coloring and sponging, and were quite nice about my photographing their endeavor.  The eggs turned out quite lovely.  I tried my hand at it, too.  I dropped and broke an egg, but it was still fun to get my hands dyed and dirty.

We filled a number of eggs with candy, and Evan hid them throughout the house.  Bethany was saying that we make it so easy for her to find the eggs, so I told Evan to make it very difficult.  We'll see how long it takes her to find all 73 (I'm mentioning the exact number in case we forget how many she needs to find).