Life *is* a garden!

I left for New Mexico last week without having harvested anything from my garden, and I returned to a giant cucumber that Bill picked for me and one more on the vine.

























Notice that the cucumber is bigger than my garden, and nearly as big as Joyce and Bill's house. Clearly, I am a master gardener.











The garden's coming along. From back to front of this picture it's tomatoes, cucumbers and a cantaloupe, bell peppers, more bell peppers/ jalapenos, more jalapenos, green beans and wax beans, carrots and onions. There's also a little garlic planted around the edges, but that's more to keep the rabbits out than anything.







I don't have a name for her yet, but I bought a fancy painted salamander in Santa Fe, and she's now living between one of my cucumbers and a cantaloupe. There's a close up of her in situ below. I know it's a girl, because she's wearing mascara and has fabulous painted toenails.























Some fancy lilies grow by my fence.













I always forget what this is called, but it's a plant that my great-grandmother, and it's still in the pot she planted it in (which I think is actually a bird bath planted in the ground, because it's impossible to move). It's a pretty little thing, anyway.













I also have a little potted garden by the side of the house. It's mostly herbs, but I also have some pepper plants and other fun stuff. this is an awesome teacup-shaped pot with spots on it. It has coriander (the little tiny one in the back - I planted the seeds a few weeks ago and it's just now getting very big), sage (the unruly looking one to the right), lemon basil (light green), and chives in the middle.





Many more of my basil seeds sprouted than I expected, so I have lemon basil coming out my ears. That's another coriander in the bottom right corner.











I got a great hanging basket at the farmer's market last week. I don't really know what all it has in it, but the flowers are gorgeous. You can also see a couple more jalapeno plants in the bottom of the picture and my Meyer lemon tree in the left corner. The light green leaves on the lemon tree are all new growth since I bought it - I'm pretty excited. Maybe I'll have lemons in the next year or two!

This is out of order, but it's one of the Easter lilies from the church that Grandpa planted. It blooms every once in a while, and it's really pretty right now.

I made cucumber salad this afternoon from the aforepictured cucumber, which means the plant's already paid for itself. I can't wait until my peppers start producing. I love me some bell peppers. We're going to make jalapeno poppers with the jalapenos, and I think Eric and I are going to try to make salsa this year, since we practically have a salsa garden. I love the summertime.