The Flip Flop Farmer

It's amazing what a difference 2,917 miles can make! As friends and family in Florida are starting to enjoy the harvest of their kitchen gardens we just got ours planted!  It's about time since we've been planning this garden since last October when we moved in. But, the yard and garden have been a work in progress almost since day 1 and the backyard is finally starting to look like a yard again! Before we could start the garden we had to cut down seven trees in the backyard, take a back hoe to the till the ground and even it out, plant an arborvitae fence, plant some laurel hedges, create a raised flower bed (complete with flowers), seed the yard, wait for some grass to grow, buy the wooden raised bed, and wait for the snow to melt in the foothills, which it finally did last week! No one needs to know I was gardening in long sleeves, pants, and of course, flip-flops! it is June after all! You can take the girl out of Florida, but you can't take Florida out of the girl :)

Most of the seeds arrived months ago from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Missouri, and JSM started them in late April in the window seat in the library. Our little "lab" turned out to be the perfect spot and our seedlings grew into small plants that JSM and I transferred to the raised bed last weekend.  As you can see there was a lot of waiting involved in getting this garden to grow and I am thrilled to finally see it in the ground! Now the real test will come when I am left alone to care for the garden when JSM goes out of town...Since this is my first experience with a vegetable patch I'm watching carefully and learning as much as I can so I don't kill any plants by the time he gets back!

The raised bed arrived!

We filled it with dirt....

And planted our garden! There's arugula, red peppers, cucumbers, basil, dill, snow peas, sweet peas, and radishes in this bed.

Tomatoes, pumpkins, and butternut squash are planted between the two flower gardens in front of our "natural area".

One of three giant and beautiful dahlia plants in the garden.

A group of calla lilies on the edge of the garden.

On a similar note, the rhododendrons in the front yard have finally bloomed! When we first saw the house last May they were not yet in bloom. When we closed on the house in August their flowers had already past so we really had no idea what colors they were! I am happy to report that we have three different bushes with  three different colors! One purple, one pink on the front of the house and a red one around the side. There is also a red flowering bush in the front yard planted between two rhododendrons.