This week I focused on finishing getting the yard planted. I am going to be out of town for the end of the month, so I wanted everything done before I leave.

I was able to get the garden planted (YAHOO!) and I’m excited for the veggies to come -this year we planted:

1. Pineapple sage (1)
2. Cilantro (3)
3. Flat Leaf Italian Parsley (2)
4. Sweet Basil (2)
5. Thai Basil (1)
6. ‘Hot & Spicy’ Oregano (1)
7. Rosemary (1)
8. Onions – Red & White – lots
9. Carrots – two 4 ft. rows
10. Lettuce – two 4 ft. rows
11. Jalapenos, “Macho Nacho” & “Mammoth” – 2 of each
12. Anaheim peppers
13. ‘Gypsy’ sweet pepper
14. ‘Chili Red’ pepper
15. ‘Hot Golden Cayenne’ pepper
16. ‘Big Bertha’ bell peppers
17. Corn, lots of corn.
18. ‘Sweet 100′ tomato
19. ‘Early Girl’ tomato
20. ‘Big Beef’ tomato
21. ‘Red Beefsteak’ heirloom tomato
22. ‘Golden Jubilee’ heirloom tomato
23. ‘Pink Brandywine’ heirloom tomato
24. Eggplant (1)
25. Zucchini Squash (2)
26. Early Prolific Yellow Squash (1)
27. Butternut Squash (1)
28. Spaghetti Squash (1)
29. Yellow bell pepper
30. Red bell pepper
31. Cucumber (2)
32. Sugar Snap Peas – two 4ft rows
33. Cantelope
34. Watermelon
35. Pumpkins (3 – they’re planted in the back of the fence by the canal)

Hurray for gardens and summer barbeques where all your produce comes from your own yard. I enjoy gardening as a spring pass time, but I’m sure glad I don’t have to do it for survival!

The garden - almost all planted . . . it looks so much better in person (plus the garbage is now cleaned up ;P )

In addition to planting the garden, I also managed to plant the flowers along my back fence. I’m branching out this year! In addition to the sunflowers, I’m adding some Zinnias.

I planted “Mammoth” sunflowers in a row along the fence. I decided to keep it simple this year, and not go for all the varieties. I’ve also been pulling out all the little sunflowers I’ve seen coming up – reseeded from last year. I’m going to keep this planting very simple AND tidy.

And then in front of the sunflowers I planted giant zinnias – they should grow to 30″ tall or more. That sound tall except when they’ve got Mammoth Sunflowers behind them

The new blue Delphinium. It will look gorgeous when it's all bloomed. Yes, that's Cal in the background sweeping the porch. He's a great helper! (He also put the sunflower seeds in the holes this afternoon!)

And the last thing I planted was a blue Delphinium in my front flower bed. My neighbor has one that I’ve admired for years, but I’ve never seen the same deep blue color. But I found one at Home Depot today. It was so big that I even divided it out of the pot and now have two in my front yard

Olivia had her second piano recital this past week – it was the classical music show. She did wonderfully. She was SOOOOOOOO excited all week for it. This recital is the culmination of these months of hard work, and I am so proud of her.

These lilac blossoms are not from my yard (I wish!) But I LOVE lilacs. They take me back to my childhood when we had a fort in a lilac bush . . .

These notes are for myself – feel free to read them, but they aren’t particularly interesting. However, after keeping notes like this for about two years now, I am finding that I do go back and reference them to remember where I bought things, what I bought, etc. And that is helpful.

My bed is planted. Now it just needs to fill in!

The weather finally warmed up this week. With warm temperatures in the forecast for the next ten days I took the initiative to get  my yard planted. Normally I wait until the end of May, but I will be out of town the last week of this month, so I started early.

I found flowers at Costco this year that I liked (petunias and impatiens) in addition to the tomato plants that I usually get there. They had good prices, even better than the Mother’s Day sales that were going on at all the other nursery’s.

This is one of the Impatiens I got from Costco (it's a little chewed up. Oh well). I don't know what variety it is because it didn't have a tag in the flat. It's taller than the usual Impatiens that I see. Do you know what it is?

But I also got some plants at Home Depot because they are close and they also were better prices and surprisingly had more selection than the (one other) garden center I went to.

I didn’t bother getting any perennials this year – mostly because the two places I went didn’t have what I wanted (I’m looking for some pretty double coneflowers). But I might go back to Home Depot – they have some pretty Delphiniums that I might go for. I also might go get some Hostas for under my tree, where nothing grows.

I have always gotten my Gerbera Daisies at Costco, but this year they didn't have any, so I only got one at Home Depot because they are Wyatt's favorite. (They are also the kid's favorites to pick).

I haven’t planted my vegetable garden yet – I thought I would do that on Saturday when Wyatt was home because I thought he would want to be a part of it. But he got busy on another project – so we never got that far. I will probably do it tomorrow.

In my search for some coneflower's I came across these African Daisies. I thought they were pretty - like a purple version of my yellow daisies (see last year's pictures). We'll see if I like them at the end of the summer.

Last year I got a beautiful, delicious tomato from Connie Vining at the RS Garden Exchange. I made a mental note to ask her about it this year. I called her this week and she told me it is called a “Celebrity” tomato. She says she was told it is the type of tomato used by Campbells in their tomato soup. I noticed they do have that variety at Costco, though I didn’t get one. I will add that to my list for this week.

I was talking to Jamie Kirkham last summer about a flower in her yard that I liked. I *THINK* she said it was a Dahlia. I got a few of these. We'll see how they go.

Also, I was talking to Roy Nydeggar who told me you can get Pink Flowering Dogwood’s on sale at Nole’s Nursery this week. That’s good because everywhere I’ve been and everywhere I’ve called, has not carried that tree. I really want one.

I came across this guy as I was planting - he's in a hard cocoon with a stinger at the end that moves when you touch him. He was about 1 1/4 inch long. What is he?