House Pictures

I had to take some pictures of my living room & bed room for a potential infomercial and they turned out so well that I thought I would share them with you. I have always wanted to be a Home Stager and I think setting up my rooms for this just reaffirmed my desire to pursue that possibility. Believe me, these rooms don't always look like this!

Now for the Living Room. Wyatt was fascinated with the items on the coffee table. We never have anything sitting out like that, so he was taking advantage!

Garden

I am getting pretty excited about my garden!! I just had my first bean harvest and I had a large bowl full!! I had to share some of them with my neighbors, because I knew we would not get them all eaten before they started to go bad! I seem to do real well with beans and they seem to really like the soil in my garden. I am still waiting to see if my sweet corn will yield better this year. Last year, the ears were so small and we only got a few, so I am hoping that since I added cow manure this past fall it will do much better. Thanks to Jack, my father-in-law, who had brought down some cattle to our area. I just cleaned out the trailer when they were done. My carrots seem to be doing better this year, but I am a little disappointed with the sweet pepper plants. They aren't doing very well in the garden. I have them in three different places as sort of an experiment. One group, I left in containers and have transplanted them to bigger containers as they grow. Another group I planted on the south side of the house with the strawberries in a raised bed and the third group is in my garden. The ones in the containers were doing the best, but now the ones in the raised beds are really taking off and have started to flower! I am excited to have fresh red, yellow, & orange peppers! They are so expensive in the stores! And we use them in numerous dishes, so I need to find a way to maybe keep them into winter, if possible. My strawberries did grow this year. Last year I planted a whole bunch of them and they ALL died! They are a little small yet this year, but, boy are they packed with flavor!! I also just sampled my first raspberries yesterday, and, wow were they good!! I'm still working on the flowerbeds out front of my house. I haven't really found the right flowers yet. I keep changing my mind every year. I'm also trying to get a good variety so I have something blooming all the time. My phlox that Mom gave me always gets what looks like fungus on the leaves that causes them to wither and die before the flowers even bloom! By the time the flowers bloom, there aren't any leaves left on the plant! I'm not sure what the problem is. I've tried watering just at ground level, thinking maybe the "city" water on the leaves was harming them, but that didn't seem to make a difference. Now I am thinking maybe it is the pine needle ground cover mulch that I put down. Every year I learn something new! I do love the fact that my moss roses keep coming back, on their own, every year! They are one of my favorites. Tracy, my older sister, also showed me that snapdragons produce small "pods" of seeds in the fall and if you don't clear away the dead plants, you can reseed in the spring with these pods, instead of buying new plants every spring! Thank you Tracy! They are beautiful every year and it saves me money!
I still have some more plants that I need on the north side of the house. It is still kind of bare except where I transplanted the hosta's; which are flourishing in their new home! I want to get another bleeding heart for that area to balance out the one I already have.
Well, that is all for my gardening adventures to date.