Kindergardens

Last weeks Kindergarden post was dedicated to animals in the garden and how they are incorporated.  I have two animals in my garden.

The first is the elusive KK-rex.  She only comes out of hiding on sunny days and being the Virgo that she is, she likes things neat and orderly. 

She is most often photographed doing this...



Our second animal is Nin-osaurous. She is a wild child who likes to draw on walls with Sharpies and has perpetually bruised shins.



Just kidding! We have no animals. No dogs. No cats. No chickens. No fish, even. We do have several wild animals that pop up every now and again though. Let's see, there is Diggy Jr (the offspring of the infamous Diggy), a fox, wild turkeys that have layed eggs in our yard. And this ugly guy.



You know what that is? A shrew! Ugly little bugger ain't he? He showed up in our neighbors yard last year. I never got a close look at him though. I did, however, get to see the damage he inflicted on my carrots and watermelon.

I do have a more current topic to complain about though, other than the lack of animals in my garden.

I could have easily called this post, What happens when you have 106 degree heat everyday for 10 days. As you may know, much of the country has baked under a heat dome for weeks now. As of Monday this week, it had been over 100 degrees everyday for 10 days. Tuesday, it cooled off to 97. And today the predicted high is 107! So I put together a litle slide show of what happens to your garden in 106 degree heat for an extended period of time.

A sea of dead, brown crunchy grass. Just at my house. My neighbors like to water their lawns and they are nice and alive and green. To me, its a waste of money. Because you know what happens when you water your grass? It grows and then you have to mow it. I use the term, you, very very loosely. Ok, ok, you caught me. I shouldn't even use the term you. That should read, my hubby has to mow. I'm just being honest here. I don't mow. I hate to mow. I have mowed once in 13 years. And I don't even feel guilty!



Squash, shriveling up



peppers wilting



Poor pathetic cucumber. Dead.


Volunteer whatever is also wilting under the heat



tomato tops



Hopefully next week I will have more to talk about than made up animals and ugly shrews.

Kindergardens

Look at me being mostly on time for once in my life!  This week is really just a tour around the garden.  There is so much growing and blooming right now! 

The fairy garden is looking rather lived in at the moment.  The houses are dirty and unkempt.  Just like mine! 





The snapdragons keep on blooming!





On to the veggies..

Cucumbers. We have already picked 3 (and devoured 2).



Pattypan squash- picked one the other day and fried it! Yum.



Also fried a couple of these..



I plant zuchinni in the same place every year and it always overtakes everything..



Lots of peppers everywhere. Big ones, small ones, banana, jalepeno. Big plants, small plants and everything in between. 15 in total.....





Twins!







I renamed this plant, the volunteer whatever who is eating the okra..



My onions are popping up out of the ground! They remind me of a passage in the book, Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.



potatoes blooming



baby watermelon



bigger watermelon! Only problem with this guy is that he is growing on the wrong side of the fence! The vines decided they wanted to grow through the fence to the neighbors yard... Kenny Rogers better not steal my watermelons. P.S. my neighbor is really named Kenny Rogers. Not the real Kenny Rogers or anything, but I'm sure you figured that out.



Tomatoes! Everywhere, every size, every color.

Red Zebra



Almost ripe early girl.



More almost ripe early girls



German pink. I'm so excited for these! Last year the plant grew great, but there wasn't a single tomato on it. So I'm looking forward to seeing how pink these get!



Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes. This plant is so loaded with these that the cage is falling over already!



Rosso scillian. I love the folds on these! They are supposed to be very meaty with not a lot of seeds so they are perfect for canning.



My lone volunteer tomato plant that is growing very close to another. It has one tiny tomato on it.



Finally, have you ever seen the flower on an okra plant? Beautiful! I have never grown okra before so I was amazed by the flower!!







It's about to be that time of the summer where you bring in buckets full of veggies everyday!

I'm back!

My sis was in town for a little over a week so I have been MIA.  It was nice to have her here though I think my nephew was about to melt away from the heat!  It was about 104 yesterday with a heat index of 120 and they are used to temps around the 70's in the Pacific Northwest.  Quite a change!  I have lots of pics to share from our week!

We had a 4th of July party, a birthday party for 2 kids at once, a canning class, visits with relatives, dinners, swimming, gardening, shopping and lots of Sonic breaks!  And most importantly we had a Diggy Jr sighting!  Diggy the famous black squirrel who lived in our neighborhood met an untimely death about a month ago.  Nin found him dead in our backyard from an apparent shock or fall from a wire.  We were all kind of bummed but 2 days ago Nin jumped up from the table screaming that Diggy was back.  Sure enough, a younger, smaller Diggy was running through our yard.  We have been trying to get a picture, but the little bugger is fast!  As my cousin said, Viva La Diggy!

Some of our fun!







4th of July parade





Oh for Pete's sake Nano...



Sharing ice







DQ



Yummy!



Avie insisted on pushing TheoLeo around in his stoller



Swimming







KK



Dolly



Nin



Lazy bum!



This isn't from Sunny's visit, but from the day we opened our pool!



Birthday party!



TheoLeo



It was so hot!



Mimi and a passle of her great grandchildren



Avie giving Mimi a hug



An onion that's taller then TheoLeo!!



Baby CheyChey





Just a few fireworks! We prefer to sit on our back deck that overlooks the whole city and watch everyone else light off fireworks. That way we don't have to spend any money!



I have some more garden photos and some things that I made!  Finally!