Fun in my backyard

Usually my husband is the family gardener. He takes care of the lawn, trees, shrubs, flowers, herbs and our vegetable garden.  I plant a few flower pots, herbs and harvest yummy veggies during the summer months.  However, this year Doug was working out of town all of May and June, so he wanted to put the garden to summer fallow.  That is why I took this task.  I hired a guy from a newspaper with a rototiller, then planted the seeds in mid May and bedding plants the end of May. 

I planted yellow, white and red snap dragons along the front of the garden to attract bees and make the garden look inviting.

 

 

 

It was cool and wet in May and the  first part of June so the seeds were slow to germinate.  Since mid June it has been hot with almost no rain.  I have been watering my pots every day and the garden every second day.

 These are red hot chili peppers.

This is mint.

Curly parsley.

Rosemary.

Second rosemary plant, this herb is delicious in salad dressings and marinades for meats.

Romaine lettuce.

Sweet Spanish onions.

Tomato plants, there are two Healthy Heart, Beef Steak and Roma plants.  The tomatoes are green now but all six plants are loaded.

My Auntie Helen gave me those pink lilies last summer when she was here for Shannon's wedding.  The beets are growing in front of them.

Below is red bell pepper plant.  At the moment it has tiny green peppers on it.

I squeezed in 24 red potato plants.

Flat leaf parsley.

Pole beans are climbing up the  wooden tripod, they are purple when raw and turn green when cooked.

Potato plant blooms.

Thyme. 

 

It has been keeping me busy as our garden patch isn't big enough to use a tiller between the rows, I have been pulling all the weeds by hand.  This combined with scorching temperatures 35 to 43 Celsius with the humidex (95 to 109 Fahrenheit), makes the work even less appealing.  I love to soak my feet in Lily's pool after working in the garden.

I also have two cherry tomato plants, two citronella plants, geraniums and begonias in pots in the back yard.

Just before I snapped these photos I harvested a dozen ripe cherry tomatoes for the pasta salad Doug was making.

Just look at all those yummy green tomatoes, they will be ready to eat in a week or less.  These little tomatoes are sweet like candy.

Citronella plants are supposed to deter mosquitoes.

 

 Geraniums.

 

 

Clematis.

We have central air-conditioning so our house is wonderfully cool during this heat wave.

 Readers, I hope you enjoyed this photo tour of my backyard.  What's growing at your house?