How Our Garden Grows!

Sorry, I am bored with Music on Monday, might pick it up again next week, not sure. I get bored very easy, LOL! Anyway I thought I would share some of our garden success for this year. Any of you who have read this blog through the years, know that gardening is something I really enjoy, but am not particularly good at. One thing I have learned is that our soil, sand actually, really stinks for growing things. So I bought a bag of good potting soil, and when I plant something new it goes in the hole with the sand and the plant. I also have been adding organic materials to the base of the plants, to help enrich the soil and feed the plant. Potato peels, banana peels, egg shells, orange peel, and any other type of peel all gets put around the base of the plant. Left over coffee, and the grounds are also used. The coffee is especially important in keeping bugs from eating your plants. It is not 100 percent effective, but it does pretty good. Roses especially love banana peels. The potassium in the peel, gives them all kinds of nutrients. I did not take pictures of all the things we have growing, but I will try to get the rest in another post. In this post is my very large yellow rose bush, taken from above. It is a really cool shot. It has been flowering like crazy this year, and is getting quite large now. Then I believe is Caitlin with her sunflower plant. Walmart was giving away free sunflower plants to kids, sometime ago now. It was about an inch tall then. We are hoping it will flower soon. You can also see my hibiscus, which I killed but it is coming back now. It is very sensitive to cool temperatures, and even though we had a warm winter, it was cool enough to kill it. I will have to be more careful with it this Winter. Then you can see my poinsetta plant, which was a gift from a friend last Christmas. Normally they die and that is it. I took mine and planted it in the ground. At first it looked real sickly, but I have been babying it. I was told it will get real huge, like a bush, if I am lucky. Last is my tomato plant, which is getting big and full pretty fast now. I kind of wanted tomatoes by now, but it is just starting to flower now. I have to watch for caterpillars that love to eat the tomato leaves. Oh, and the banana tree. We bought a four dollar banana tree around Mother's Day. It is growing pretty fast for a tree now. I am told they are very sensitive to cold as well, so I will have to watch it come Winter. I love bananas, and hope we get tons. It won't produce for probably three years or so.