Flaunt your Flowers this Fertilizer Friday!

It has been a looong week and it ain't over yet.

I was on vacation last week and returned to work this week. I had hoped to have my yard projects completed before going back to work, but that did not happen. I did, however, get the last of it done on Canada Day, July 1st. Yay me!

In the midst of all this, I have tenants moving out - tenants who did not work out and who I had to ask to leave. They were not happy campers about that and it has been a stressful time. Their stuff is all gone, but they promised to clean, and the dust bunnies and inches of frost in the freezer compartment seem to indicate the cleaning isn't done. I'm not sure if they're coming back or not.

But, the garden of course, is a little oasis of pleasure. It's so peaceful and calming, the perfect place to destress. Things are motoring along out there, in no small part, I'm sure, to Fertilizer Friday. If it wasn't for Tootsie, I'd still be fertilizing just once a month.

Tootsie Time hosts Fertilizer Friday as a time for us to fertilize our plants indoors and out and post pictures of what's growing around us. Here's what's happening outdoors at the School of Yard Knocks:

Yep, they are peonies :-D

My sister came to visit on Tuesday and brought me two beautiful lily plants. I haven't planted them yet.

A little sunflower is cheering up the place.

My wave petunias are starting to kick in.

I was having trouble focussing my camera today for some reason. Sorry for the blurriness. You can see my veggie beds are coming along. I do fertilize my tomatoes, but not any of my other veggies. I'll write more about my veggies in the next few days, as soon as I find some spare time.

Don't forget to visit Tootsie Time to take part in her Fertilizer Friday meme or just to visit the other gardens participating.

Veggies are UP!

It took just over a week for all my veggies to pop through the earth. Zucchini, cucumbers (left), onions, garlic, dill, snap peas, beets, pole beans, and bush beans have all germinated and are poking along. It's been cool here ... it cooled down to 15C on Thursday June 4th, and I remember because the wind was cold but I got a sunburn anyway. Since then it's been pretty cloudy with daily highs of 10-15C. Cold for this time of year and not good for the veggies. My tomato plants have a lot of yellow leaves which I believe means they aren't getting enough sun? Oh well, hopefully they won't all shrivel up and die.

Got most of my flowers planted too. I needed some more marigolds for the veggie garden (companion planting), and I couldn't resist some more pansies and allysum while I was at it. I also seem to have picked up a tub of sunflower seedlings somehow. I sowed probably 40 sunflowers by seed, so I really don't need any seedlings.

I am just weeding now and getting pretty tired of it. The yard looks great, but the veggie beds are showing weeds again, and I haven't finished weeding elsewhere yet. It just never ends.

Yay! A rain day!

I'm kinda disappointed. I had garden plans for today - I wanted to get my pole and bush beans planted (and make a support for the pole beans); my tomato seedlings transplanted; and at least one more of my raised beds weeded. But we really need the rain.

My Auntie Mary (my mom's sister) stopped in yesterday, as she usually does on Saturday mornings. She said that according to the moon, yesterday was the day to plant anything that produces a hanging "fruit" (eg cucumbers and zucchini). Oopsie. I had been weeding bed by bed, not really paying attention to which bed got weeded first. The bed for the zucchini was done, but the bed for the cukes was not. I managed to get that bed weeded, and all my cuke and zuke seeds in yesterday. Whew.

As far as the veggies go, I have this left to do:

- weed last veggie bed

- plant pole beans and bush beans in the same bed and create a support for the pole beans

- transplant tomato seedlings into raised bed

- figure out how to plant onions and garlic - I haven't planted either before and there are no instructions on the seed packages regarding row spacing or bulb depth

- plant sugar snap peas and beets in the same raised bed

- transplant hot pepper seedlings into barrels

- decide if I want to remove one row of zucchini from the zuke bed (there are two rows planted) and plant two rows of kohlrabi instead

All in all, not that much left to do to finish up the veggies. Hopefully, I will get them done on Tuesday.

Then I can start transplanting the flowers :-)

I'm not even going to think about the weeds in the ground right now :P

Flowers, baby, flowers :-D