These are homework breaks

Wow, what a busy day!  If some of you don't know, I'm currently enrolled in four graduate classes that are on 8-week schedules.  Now, two classes is considered full time.  Imagine what four can do to a person's free-time.  But even though my schedule is full of textbook readings, forum discussions, essays, and literature reviews, oh and that Open Source Intelligence (OSINT or my Oh S***) project, I'm still finding time to get to the gardens.  Because, let's face it...I like to play in the dirt.

Trellised cantaloupe

Lil' baby cucumber

For this weekend's mini-projects, I managed to trellis the cantaloupe and butternut squash for the time being; however, I still need to get to the pumpkins before they get much bigger.  The squash took a wooden dowel away from the blueberry plant, but that's fine because it's gotten a lot bigger since I bought it this last winter so it doesn't need that dowel for support anymore.  And upon inspecting everything else, I found a little baby cucumber growing.  I'm so excited!

I think it's a nice color

And while I was busy with everything else, the boy got up on the ladder to paint the high spots on the house.  At times, I sat nearby in the shade trying to catch up on class reading.  Other times, I found more projects to occupy myself.  One project that I started a few weeks back was my garden bench (care of Martha Stewart).  I spoke to my friend about it before however needed the extra time to actually put it together.  Finding the time today, I finally finished it.  Go me!  

The garden bench, just needs a coat of paint/stain

Now, the website says to use screws; however, I used tack nails because I used plywood for the side panels.  Also, since we don't have fancy tools, I used a trash can lid (cuz you know, they're round) to make the decorative curve along the bottom. All in all, I say it turned out pretty damn awesome.  I think my grandpa would be thrilled at my new found carpentry skills.

Triple Digits

Poppies in the 'maple garden' May '12

Holy cow! It feels as if I'm living on the surface of Mercury over here!  This last week has been nothing but triple digit, sticky-icky heat even at night.  Except for some shady spots, all the grass in the yard is that nice dead straw color as well as texture.  You know, the kind that crunches underfoot.  But the gardens are staying hydrated even as the rest of the world melts.  The beautiful spring blooms (like the poppy to the left) have all died back giving way to our summer blooms announcing summer in bright yellows, pinks and even subtle shades of black.

Repopulated 'chocolate sunflower'

Even now things are changing in the gardens.  The sunflowers from last year repopulated their garden bed, except they're more yellow this year....The black petunias are doing wonderful with their orange pansy buddies on the front porch.  The citrus trees are loving their front row spot in the sunlight and their friends, the strawberry plants.  When I first transplanted the strawberries I picked away the buds so the plants could focus on growing a little bit.  Since then, I've let them have their fun in growing mini fruit.  It's that or let the squirrels get to them...

First harvest of strawberries

In addition, the white pumpkins, cantaloupe, butternut squash, and pickle cucumbers are running amuck. The cucumbers have taken nicely to their trellis but the rest of my little cucurbitaceae (aka the melon & squash family of plants) friends will have to be wrangled up too before they get more ambitious.  Cutworms got to my red bell pepper plant not too long after transplant.  However, some soap spray and cornmeal later I got rid of the pesky things before they got to the banana pepper plant.  And we have mystery corn in the yard.  I wanted to plant bicolor sweet corn in my container garden this year; however, the birds were gracious enough to spread their corn seed about the front yard.  Now there's corn growing in front of the driveway in random spots.  The boy blamed me for a millisecond before we noticed the culprit of the bird feeder.

Planning for the garden expansion

Not only have the gardens been busy but we have as well...Next to the maple garden we began to plan out the newest feature to the backyard...a mixture of herbs and decorative plants. So far there are black viola, echinacea, chives, oregano, apple mint, and lavender in that new spot with room for other perennials and maybe some annuals.  In the left hand side of the picture (which you can't see), I think I'm going to put a few Asiatic lilies that we have cooped up in a pot and maybe next year get a different variety of day lily.  I blame our trips to the Botanical Gardens for all these wonderful ideas....

That's it for now, classes have taken up ludicrous speed as I try to finish my graduate program in under a year before my funding runs out...talk about fun...but! Don't let the heat keep you from going outside!  Remember give water to yourself and your plants, wear sunglasses/hat/sunscreen, and stay cool!  Now go play in that dirt :)