Tending my garden

Growing up, my mom was always gardening. We moved just about every three years (unrelated to the military), so she had a lot of opportunities to start new gardens. And for the most part we always lived in new construction houses, so the yard was a clean slate to begin with. However, while I was younger did I have any interest in gardening? Of course not. That changed once we had our first town house in Ohio.

While renting, we were pretty limited in what we could do in the yard of each house we have lived in. We have planted several flowers and such in containers, but that is hit and miss with me.

When we moved here and bought our first house, I had my first real chance at a garden. This is a new construction house, so the yard was a clean slate. It came with grass and some plants in the front flower beds, but everything else was on us.

Being an environmentally-friendly person, I was most interested in creating a bee/butterfly/hummingbird garden. Bees are essential to our food production system. Pesticides and such are causing large amounts of casualties among bee communities, so planting bee friendly plants and flowers and avoiding pesticide use is super helpful. I made my list of plants and flowers to look out for and headed to Lowe's.

Chocolate mint

Citronella...my attempt to keep the mosquitoes at bay

More herbs

Lime basil and lemon balm both smell fantastic!

The cilantro (behind the salvia) has doubled in size over the past two weeks. I better start using it before it's taller than me.

We also wanted to plant some fruits and veggies. We had a tomato plant in California that did really well and we wanted to try a few other things.

Two apple trees and a magnolia tree

Strawberry flower

Okra

Broccoli

We planted three blueberry plants. Two are really tiny and we're hoping they grow nice and tall with lots of blueberries.

Watermelon! We attempted watermelon while in California, but it never really produced anything. Here's to attempt #2!

Hummingbirds galore!

A few months ago we were picking up some bird food at Lowe's and saw all the hummingbird feeders. We thought we would take a chance, buy one, and see if we could attract a hummingbird or two.

Apparently the hummingbirds here are numerous and very hungry! We go through hummingbird food like crazy. When we purchased the feeder we also bought some nectar. But after seeing how fast they drink it up, I looked into making my own. It couldn't be any easier. Thank you Pinterest! All you do is heat up some water and sugar until the sugar is combined...one cup of water with 1/4 cup sugar.

A few times at the new house we have seen 6+ hummingbirds buzzing around the feeder at the same time. They are really fun to watch. Hummingbirds are very territorial and will fight in mid-air. We are always worried about being smacked in the face by one whenever we are outside.