I Have a Garden Again!

In Atlanta, we had a great yard.  In the front, we built planter boxes and had gorgeous flowers and delicious herbs and peppers.  In the back, we built a pond with our own hands that had plants and fish and even two toads that took up residence in the waterfall.  The summer we built it, Josh had an internship at a geotechnical engineering company and did concrete testing all the time.  That border around the pond is actually concrete test cylinders that were going to be thrown out and we salvaged.  How green of us!  They perfectly matched the bench we already had and gave the pond a cool Asian feel.
 

Damn weeds.  I trimmed those bushes behind the lattice every week and they just came back faster and more robust than ever.

Our little fishies!  We started with just a few and then, one spring I looked in the water and said "Hey Josh...I think Mr. Toad had babies"  A couple weeks went by and that turned into "Holy crap! Josh, our fish had babies and now we have lots of fish!"  That was such a cool thing to know that the little mini-ecosystem we created was found suitable enough for our fish to reproduce. 

Chez Mr. Toad

It was a great backyard to hang out in.  The dogs loved it and the sound of the running water was soooo soothing. 

Then this happened.  Yeah, see the concrete cylinders?  That's our pond under that huge tree.  That happened right after we got married last year.  There had been so much rain that the roots got washed out from a tree 2 neighbors over and it fell right on our fence, hitting the huge maple tree on the border and sending that one falling towards our house.  Miraculously, the tree fell just short of hitting our deck.  The top actually knocked a pot off the corner of the railing but went no further.  It eventually got cleaned up but we lost about half the fish (Josh's dad adopted the survivors) and we moved before repairing the ripped pond liner.  It was really sad but the upside of it all is that soon, Josh's dad is going to renovate the whole house and yard and make it better than ever.  I can't wait to see it!



Ever since moving, I've missed being able to just walk out the front door and clip some fresh herbs or pick peppers I watched grow from seed.  The apartment we had in Louisiana had a little patio but didn't get any sun so I couldn't plant anything.  Now that we live in a house with a yard, I told Josh I wanted to build planter boxes again so that I could once again feed my addiction for homegrown herbs and peppers.  We got to work designing 2 sturdy boxes to go on the back patio...and then Josh went to work and I built them.  Well, not completely.  I built 80% of the first one and then Josh assisted me on the other.  Seeing as how these would be outside, we needed to stain them.  I usually go for dark stains on my furniture but for this, I wanted bright.  "Josh, can we stain them blue?"  I'm sure he was scared because I painted our last kitchen a very festive blue you ladies would recognize as "Tiffany Blue".  He obliged, however and in no time, we had 2 beautiful blue planters full of tomatoes, peppers, and herbs.

I'm in love with the blue stain.  I was sad when we bought it because the swatch wasn't quite the color I wanted but it was close enough so we got it anyway.  I was pleasantly surprised when we actually applied it because the color was just the perfect hue I had pictured all along!  It contrasts so beautifully with the green of the plants and the orange of the marigolds and terra cotta.  It makes the otherwise sad patio look bright and happy.  I love happy colors.  That's our little grill in the back and our compost bin in the front.

I'm growing everything organically and one thing I read is that marigolds repel several types of garden pests so I planted a few.

This is a citronella plant.  I wanted to get some plants that naturally repelled mosquitoes and we just happened to find these.  They smell so good.

I've tried to grow rosemary several times before and it never survived.  This one seems to be doing fine though so I guess I'll actually be able to do it this time.

Ahh, thyme.  I've started using it alot more now that I have instant access.  It tastes awesome on grilled chicken.

Oregano.  I haven't used any yet but its time is coming.

One of the ornamental peppers.  I have jalapenos, red bell peppers, 3 types of tomatoes, basil and parsley in addition to all these things pictured.  The tomatoes are getting a slow start but I'm hoping they make it!

I also have 2 roses since I live near Tyler, the Rose Capitol of the US.

I looooove yellow roses and these are some of the prettiest I've seen.  They're pale orange in the center and pale yellow on the outside.  They smell nice too.

This is the other one.  It has orange flowers that aren't blooming at the moment but new buds are coming.  I thought the rose tree concept was really cool so I found one and found out that it's actually a regular rose grafted with a crape myrtle tree.  I'll probably accumulate more roses over time since they're so easy to come by and there are a bajillion varieties that I've already talked about.

Sigh.  I know it's a tiny garden and I'd love to have a yard full of yummy edibles but this will have to do for now.  At least it's not an apartment!