The Container Garden Loot

Today I harvested some of my Container Garden Vegetables. I got some really neat stuff for a first timer! I'm going to salute them up and have a wonderful side dish for tonights meal. 

Black Velvet Petunia and a Frog - Ribbit

Today I spent a few hours taking some shots of flowers and testing out my new Canon 60D. I'm new at this, but I got some really cute shots. I even got a frog that has set up home in our pond area.  We draw in a lot of frogs with the ponds, there is quite the habitat forming there. We had this old birth bath (if you are a follower you would have seen this in a past post filled with orange water lol). It was just laying around in the back yard getting really yucky so we cleaned it up and brought it up front to plant in. We added some ivy from our back yard, a pretty center grass I picked up and the local nursery as well as Black Velvet Petunias. YES, you heard me correctly, Black Velvet. They were gorgeous and I have to do these again soon. 

This is a new plant below that we added this year. It is a Mini Columbine that I found at Lowes. I love love it, and so do the my Hummingbirds that visit this yard. I have went back several times to look for another one and I'm not able to find another. I will have to split this one, once it gets established. It is a perennial so it will come back each year.

Below are my Daisy's trying real hard to bud and flower. Can't wait to see what this one turns into. 

Below is another planter that Kelly and I threw together from some extra plants we had that did not make it into the ground.  We always end up with extra and this is a great way to incorporate them into the garden. 

This pink plant is new as well. I for the life of me can not remember the name? I do remember it's only an annual.  If anyone know definitely leave it below in the comments. I know somewhere in this house I have the plant tag for this (I save my tags every year). When I found it I will update this post with the name. 

Ground cover is fun as well. The chick in Hens is super pretty and the white plant is a type of Baby's Breathe. Very pretty and great for covering bald spots.  Our Garden is really new so, so until it gets established it will have lots of bare spots! 

Next up is my Frog. It was really cool to see them start living in our pond. It's awesome that we have created a beautiful bird, animal and flower habitat in a place where there was only overgrown half dead brush. I'm learning a lot about gardening as I go along. 

Creating another new planting area

Today we decided to create a new planting area in a lonely spot in our yard. It faces the neighbors so we are thinking of doing some perimeter planting or bushes. My original thought for this area was Hydrangea bushes, but I think it's direct sunlight and too hot for that type of bush. We used our container garden pots to mark out 5 squares to dig up. 

We ended up planting butterfly bushes here that did well for a few years until I cut them back to the ground for winter. I killed those suckers real fast doing that, lol. I was pretty sure I read on the internet you were supposed to cut them down. Oh well, Kelly has called me a plant killer for ever and in this case I lived up to my nickname! 

Finally Container pics :)

I finally was able to get pics of my containers :) I used my Cricut to label all my containers.

I didn't label the above container yet - It was forgotten actually (ooops), but this is my Arugula lettuce leaves with Spinach planted around.

Hard to see in the pictures above but I have wire trellis posts behind them so I have a place to support the tomatoes and peppers as they grow :)

The Radish plants were def an experiment lol. I have no idea what will happen here but I was willing to try. Yesterday I thinned them down to two inches apart as required and we will just have to wait and see. If I get just one I would feel excited and like it was an accomplishment lol :)

The dirt in the Mixed Salad container looks a lil funky but the new seeds are still pushing it all up. I'm going to give it a few more days, and then tap down the soil better to get this one looking more normal lol :) Woooohooo my First Container Garden, never planted anything before. I figured I would just plant everything and whatever survives will be eaten! lol :)

EDIT: I used vinyl for making these letters. This is actually repositionable vinyl. I found it at Lowe's. It's is actually wall border that has sticky on one side and Vinyl on another. I just run it threw the Cricut and cut away, and then used transfer tape to get it mounted straight on whatever surface I want. Lowe's no longer carries this wallpaper so I stocked up when they had 16 feet rolls for a dollar a piece. I got tons of colors. I have watered the plants and wet the surface and so far they have not peeled off. I will have to check them again tonight as I am not positive this will last the summer lol.