My Flower Garden Tour 2017, Part 2: Annuals

Last week I took you on a tour of the perennial flowers in my flower gardens. Today, I will be sharing the annuals!

In case you were wondering what the difference is, perennials come back every year (hopefully!) Annuals are only around for one season. I try to incorporate a good mix of both perennials and annuals in my flower gardens. The nice thing about annual flowers is that they can really change up the look of your garden from year to year if you plant different ones each year!

Next year, I am planning on really stepping up my annuals. The past few years I've focused mostly on perennials because they are cheaper in the long run and you don't have to keep replanting them! But, my annuals have really looked awesome this year, so I am going to do it up even more next Spring/Summer!

I really don't have that many gardens. Don't get the idea that I have acres upon acres of perfectly manicured gardens like Martha Stewart! Although, that is my goal one day! I have a few little areas around my house, garage, and creek that I've managed to put a border on and plant a few plants! They are always a work in progress and I still have plenty of space in all of them to plant more flowers next year, and even for years to come!

If all you have are a few containers on your apartment balcony or window ledge, that's a great start! In fact, that's how I got my start! And don't get discouraged if your plants didn't do so hot this Summer. There's always next year!

All the seeds that I planted this year. The Primrose and Phlox didn't happen this year.

Here is my back little garden area at the very beginning of Summer. It looks like weeds but about July or August it really starts to look like an actual garden.

Here it is today!

These are the Zinnias, which are one of my new favorite flowers.

An up close shot of one of the Zinnias. They are all so different, you never know what you're going to get!

A Sunflower just about to open.

These are Cockscomb that I originally got at the Johnny Appleseed Festival two years ago! I planted the seeds that fell from them and they have come back every year! They are technically Annuals but the seeds just replant them by themselves!

Twins! This year I am going to get another color to add to the garden! Maybe orange.

My creekside garden is so shady, so I planted Impatiens and they have really done well! I think they are going to be my go-to flower from now on since my yard is so shady.

I love ornamental or flowering cabbages!

Perfect for Fall!

A unique Begonia mix.

In the background is one of my fave plants, a Kong Coleus. The Asparagus Fern in the front I got on clearance for 50 cents and it has just grown like crazy! I love these Ferns!

Speaking of Coleus, the ones I planted from seed actually ended up blooming! It was touch and go for a couple months after a groundhog messed up this area. I will definitely be planting these again next year.

This is a Flowering Maple...it reminded me of a Hibiscus, so I had to get it!

And finally, my sweet peas! This was my first year growing them and clearly I have some things to learn! 1. Get the proper size! These are supposed to grow up to 7 foot tall! Way taller than my tomato cage trellis! It's still possible that these will bloom, so we will see!

This is my big old planter on my deck full of petunias, sunpatiens, verbena and a corkscrew plant.

Goodbye Summer! Til next year!

The Vegetable Garden

My vegetable garden has finally started to take off! We had a very slow start and had to replant a bit, but we've ended up with quite a few things growing! Even things we didn't expect!

Shortly after planting the vegetable garden and cactus seeds we had a major rainout and unfortunately, a lot of my seeds washed away!

My DIY Cactus Garden that was growing in my Jiffy Greenhouse was a complete bust! I left it on my back porch to soak up the sun and all it ended up soaking up was a ton of water. Even with the lid on! I have a feeling that when I dumped the water out, the seeds went with it. Oops.

My vegetable garden also got washed away! Only two pumpkin plants and two (what we thought were) honeydew ended up surviving, along with three sunflowers. None of the cantaloupes came up at all.

 On a positive note, we have tons of full-size cucumbers growing! And no, we didn't plant any cucumbers this year! Or last year even! I honestly think that the honeydew seeds were actually cucumber seeds that were mispackaged.

We did end up getting four already-sprouted Iroquois Cantaloupes from Main's Garden in New Haven during their annual half off sale to replace the seeds. They're doing well so far and flowering, but still no fruit yet. Iroquois is supposedly one of the easiest kinds to grow, so that's good for us!

I'm not mad about all the failures in my garden this year. I'm sure that even Martha Stewart has had her share of gardening mishaps! It's all part of the learning process! For as many failures as we had this year, we've had just as many successes! And I am very excited that my pumpkins are doing so well! I can't wait for Fall!

I had my suspicions when I saw this that it wasn't a honeydew! I've grown enough pickles to know what a cucumber blossom looks like!

The cucumbers are probably doing the best out of everything we planted!

Here's one that's almost ready!

This is one of the Iroquois Cantaloupes that we planted.

Here's a tiny pumpkin just sprouting out of it's orange blossom! I've got several more at this stage right now.

This is the biggest pumpkin so far. They are all the mini pumpkins so it won't get too much bigger than this. I am curious if it's going to be white or orange. It's still too hard to tell at this stage.

This was the poor cactus garden after it's rainout. I may try it again if I can find some more cactus seeds!

Here's one of my beautiful sunflowers!

Grow Your Own Cactus!

 
Cacti are definitely having a moment right now! Everywhere I look, I see a cute little cactus in a cute little pot. On TV, on Instagram, on Pinterest, and even at Walmart.

 I decided I needed one. Or several! I want to make a little cactus garden! While searching for seeds for my garden this spring, I actually came across cactus seeds! I knew immediately that I was going to give it a try. It'd be a lot cheaper to grow them yourself ~ and more fun too!

I love a good cactus. When I was 19, my friend and I went to Saguaro National Park in Arizona and I have been obsessed with cacti big and small ever since! If you are ever in the Tucson area, I highly recommend visiting! It is gorgeous and probably the only place in America where you can get your picture taken with a real fifty foot tall cactus!

My souvenir from my Arizona trip was a small cactus garden with three or four different kinds of cacti in it. I wish I still had it, but unfortunately, my green thumb only seems to apply to outdoor plants! In all honesty, I really want to go back to Arizona, mostly so I can get another cactus garden!

Since a trip to Arizona is not on the horizon anytime soon, I'm going to give these cactus seeds a shot! If all else fails, I'll just buy some cacti at the store and make a cactus garden that way! Next up, I've got to find an awesome pot to put them it!

I had this Jiffy Greenhouse left over from a few years ago when I started some seeds indoors. I thought it was perfect for my cactus experiment, but I'm sure starting them in any kind of pot would work.

These Jiffy pods are awesome! They start out as these little tabs of dry, compressed dirt and all you do is put water on them and they grow!

Just pour water over them until they open up and drain the pan.

Next up, it was time to plant the seeds. They were so tiny!

All I did was make a small divot with my finger and set at least two seeds in the pod. I then kinda smooshed them down a bit and covered the seeds with a bit of the dirt.

All set and ready to grow!

Lastly, I covered them up. See how the "greenhouse effect" is happening already with the top steaming up? Here's hoping these work out! I will be so excited if I even get one cactus out of this! Check back for more updates as the cactus garden grows!

Planting the garden!

For once, I finally got my garden in on time!

Last weekend we rented a tiller and got to work. In Northern Indiana, you're supposed to wait until Mother's Day to plant any type of vegetable garden or flowers. Mother's Day is supposedly the last time it will frost here, although, back in the 1960's it did frost at the very end of May. Let's hope that never happens again! 

Normally, I don't seem to be able to get my garden in until June or even July, so I am super psyched that I can look forward to a long and hopefully, productive growing season.

Last year, my vegetable garden did not do well at all. For starters, I tried to save money and hand tilled it. Big mistake! It took forever and was so difficult. My soil is full of clay so it was almost impossible to do it by hand and do a good job. I even got a Ganglion cyst on my hand from it! 

As a result, the garden ended up being about half the size as normal, which meant my veggies were super crowded. It also got really weedy and I was unable to weed it properly since it was so crowded. My pickles barely grew and even my sunflowers didn't really do that well. We almost decided not to even put in a garden this year, but...I just had to!

I've actually had my "vegetable" garden planned out since January! The second those seed packets start showing up in the stores my mind starts churning! As of right now, I am only doing a few things. Most everything I'm doing is very viney, so it will have a lot of room to spread out!  

I love pumpkins and I found some cute mini harvest pumpkin seeds so I had to plant those. I seem to have better luck with the mini pumpkins as opposed to the jack-o-lantern size. My husband wanted to give honey dew and cantaloupe a try too, and of course, I had to plant some sunflowers! 

You never know though, I still may add to it if I find just the right thing!

This was the garden before we started. You can't even tell where it was last year! It gets taken over by grass and weeds so quickly!

This tiller made quick work for my husband! I had planned on being the one that did the tilling, but it was so heavy and impossible for me to handle. So, ladies, you may need to get some help tilling your garden if you're a wimp like me!

After tilling the garden with the tiller, I went over it with a garden rake to get anything that was missed. Anything that looked like it had a root structure got ripped out! I'm not going to use any chemical weed preventer this year due to the fact that I noticed the one I had used previously states that it causes cancer. Uh, no thank you! I'm going to be researching some alternatives! I know it looks super shady right now, but this garden actually gets full sun in the afternoon.

This stuff is the bane of my existence. I have no idea what it is, but if anyone out there does or knows how to eradicate it, let me know! It's all over my yard and it's always trying to take over my gardens.

All ready for planting! I'm going to wait until I see sprouts to put up my fence.

I'm really hoping these work out this year ~ especially my pumpkins! It's so gratifying to grow your own garden! Give it a try!

The first sighting!

Doesn't this just warm your heart on a cold winter's day?