Garden score

So we stopped by Lowe's and they had some really great stuff on the clearance rack. I went looking for mums for my three large flower pots sitting in the front flower bed. Large mums are crazy expensive in Florida and they weren't out when I was in TN.  Imagine my surprise when there was a 7' rack stuffed with 1 gallon pots of lavender mums! For $1 each! ONE DOLLAR. Now the lavender ones don't scream fall to me, and they are a little dull as far as color goes, but hey, Mr. Paisley chose to do the flower beds in a bunch of shades of purple with a little white thrown in for good measure back in May and being Florida, everything is pretty much still growing well. The multi-colored petunias that were in the pots is what crapped out and that's all I was replacing.  Why were they $1 you ask? All the "current" blooms were dead, however the plants were full, lush and LOADED with buds for the next round of blooms. Sold. I loaded up 6 in my cart, plus a flat of some little fringe petal flower in purple and white that was $3 (18 in the flat) I don't know why these were on the rack, maybe it was the one that looked a little wilty - the rest were just dandy. Into my cart they went and for a little more height I paid full price ($3.49) for some multi-color leaf plant that sort of resembles a Croton, but the leaves are a dark green at the edges with pinky purple streaks in the middle. I ended up putting these in the middle of my pots and surrounded them with the flowers from the flat. The mums ended up in my new urn and in the tree line flower bed. 

Here are photos as of 6:06pm - a lot of the blue daze flowers have already closed up for the day, but you can see how much of the May plantings are still there and doing well!

Mary Mary quite contrary...

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row

Although when I was little we used to trade out the last line for "and one darn onion" - I have no idea why.

I guilted invited my mother to go to the cabin with me for the 4th of July weekend since Mr. Paisley was working thru the holiday and after several calls back and forth with my Tennessee neighbor - I just really felt like I needed to go. Turns out my bench was the only thing missing - from my house. My neighbor was kind enough to move the rest of it into the house...I asked her if she could put it on the screened porch - it's locked and frankly, more trouble than it's worth to break into. She rolled up my rug and put it out there...everything else she put in the living area inside. 

While I sincerely appreciate her doing that...OH MY FREAKING GOD!  The bugs, the spiders, the spider webs I kept walking into, the dead things...I nearly had a heart attack after running into the "critters" that were living in the stuff that she brought into the house. Seriously. 

For instance...this beauty (pardon the crummy cell phone picture and the fact that there is like no light in the downstairs bathroom). That's a dead (THANK GOD) spider. Please note the size of the drain in relation to the size of the curled up and dead spider.

Kill me now. As if the spider wasn't bad enough...there was the thickest, stickiest, ridiculous web coating nearly half the tub. HALF! 

Another of these lovelies turned up as I went to do a load of laundry. It was IN the washing machine. I popped the lid open, it ran, I cranked it up to a full wash cycle on heavy duty with hot water and ran screaming - to myself, but screaming in my head none-the-less. Spiders don't swim. I nearly barfed when I was shaking out a towel fresh from the dryer only to find a few crispy stray spider legs. Long crispy spider legs. 

Kill me now.

I ran into on SMALL spider still alive. I sucked it up with the vacuum and then dumped the canister over the deck rail. Then there was the centipede...or millipede. Whatever - I didn't stop to count the legs. I stomped on it, screeched and did the "ew ew OMG it's on me, get it off" dance.  

My aunt and one of her granddaughters came down from Ohio for part of our visit. We had a good time.

The day my aunt was leaving, she and my mom decided they needed to plant me a garden. Like that? Proper English / Grammar Police beware! The said I should have hostas there. Well duh...we planted, oh I dunno, 10 or 11 of the damn things last summer, they didn't come back. So they raked. Worked on my little rock wall. Ran the drip hose. Made a couple trips to Lowe's for plants and rocks and planted a nice little garden that I don't have great photos of...but here they are anyway. 

I bought a cute red, white, and blue pinwheel for a little 4th of July festive-ness

Hostas, day lilies, lantana and a couple of other plants that I can't remember the name of (probably stuff we don't have in FL)

My creative aunt added two sizes of rocks in sort of a wave pattern to look like they had washed down the hill from the road above.

The hose isn't pretty, but not sure what else to do with it. It will get partly covered up as the lantana starts to creep.

My aunt says she's going to drag her ex-husband down to the cabin with her one weekend and totally redo my rock wall. She said "it needs rock glue" whatever that is...she's always the one with the best looking yard, so she can do whatever she wants with it!

Wow - today nearly slipped right by me!

It is nearly 11:30pm - holy cow the day flew by! 

Today i'm going to share my weekly garden photos. I take photos every Sunday afternoon - or at least I have been since we planted the garden this year. Sometimes I throw in random other plants that are in bloom around the yard. Since we live in Central Florida - stuff grows year round, flowers, fruits and veggies are no exception. Since the suspense is killing you - i'll get on with gettin' on...

Strawberries....the two ripe ones that you can see in this photo were picked this afternoon!

The vine that is taking over is my cucumber. There is actually a black wrought iron garden ornament that is roughly 30" high in there. If you look real close, you can see the sort of spiral "ball" on the very top of it (look just below the red petunia that is farthest to the right). Lots of blooms, no fruit. This is the first time we have planted a cuke. Evidently, we're missing something. 

This is an acorn squash - there is another smaller one in the background. It fell off today...so sad for my little acorn squash . At least the larger one seems to be thriving. LIVE little squash - I can taste you now! All sweet and roasted with a little brown sugar and balsamic glaze...

This is basically all of my squash and zucchini plants. At the bottom left you can see some of my collard greens (and that tall one poking up thru the squash). That is 6 plants. Insane isn't it?!

How cute are my tiny little squashes?!

Red petunias...I have a basket hanging at each end of the garden - the flowers help attract bees and such to do the pollinating!  

 Pardon my split leaf - it's just happy to see you.

The aloe is also blooming. Evidently...nothing will kill purple queen Not even a real winter in Florida...as you can clearly see, there is still a mass of that. The pathetic dead thing in the clay pot was a pineapple. The sticks in the ground were an 8' tall corn plant (Dracaena Fragrans, not like corn on the cob corn). Not much left of that. Rainbow Curly Leaf Crotons at the far end .

Another day another squash...

Tomorrow our garden will be 7 weeks old. Like I said, it's gone crazy! Today's harvest - some yummy summer squash that will be on the grill with a little EVOO and rosemary tonight! I can hardly wait!

I had to throw the little one in there too - it fell off the plant. Normally something like this would just get tossed in the compost bin (hey - there's my hubby building our compost bin now)

but not at this house! I have two iguanas and they will be thrilled to get a couple of bites out of it. No need for it to have died in vain...

Here are a couple of photos of my girls...I lovingly refer to them as "garden pests" - this is Smirnoff. She's 16 years old this year - she's my sweetpea. 

Isn't she gorgeous?

This is Jose Cuervo...not really a girlie name I know. There's a story behind that, but that's another blog post! Anywho, Jose is 14 this year. She was 2 when I rescued her. She's special...in a diminished mental capacity kind of way. Bless her heart - she didn't have a lot to work with to begin with...She had a rough start in life before she turned up on my doorstep. Frankly, I'm surprised she survived - but here she is today! She's a climber...always climbing. I love her - even if she did tear up my bike seat.

I hope you all have an amazing weekend!