June so far feels like reliable, balmy summer. The garden is far from ready, but I've been working many hours a day (with lots of breaks), and things are shaping up.
The vegetable garden is usually first on the list, but this season it will be fully planted last.
I dedicated a bed to herbs last year, but they did just so so, and weren't convenient for cooking. This year, most are on our mini-deck, which is always sunny and hot, just as they like it. They couldn't be more convenient for recipes. They're very pretty as well, and that spot hasn't looked so good in years.
After innumerable seasons of having my peppers do nothing or get eaten if they do start to grow nicely, I put those up on the deck in pots too. Surely the squirrels won't look for them there.
Last season I had all my pots in the side yard and vegetable garden. It just looked like a jungle, somehow. Run through the Jungle!!
This year they're mostly in the perennial area.
I'm using my nice fencing, finally, both as a backdrop for hanging plants and a place to hang my few hanging wire baskets. I like looking from the lush perennial bed beyond to the fence area.
I purchased a wide variety of coleus for the front. The small bed is prone to rabbits, burrowing beasts in late July/August, and poor soils with a hearty weed population. Fresh dirt, mulch and big pots will see it through the season, I'm hoping.
I always put geraniums in my swans, but decided this year I don't really care for geraniums and in went some nicotiana which really suits it well.
Every year I look for fun and interesting pots. Most places I've visited this year have really ugly brown and red earth colors. If they're pretty at all, they're glazed ceramic with no drainage holes. Why sell a pot with no drainage holes? Almost as bad are the pots with a tray attached which holds water and dirt and becomes slimy pretty fast.
Some of my clay pots are getting brighter colors and I found some nice stencils at Joann's which I'll use to paint hopefully charming little pictures. I'm using acrylics for outdoors. They're taking three coats, depending on the brush used rather than the paint. I started with foam brushes which are smooth but don't cover well. A regular little brush was better, a Crayola small brush better yet. Last I tried a brush from my paint brush horde (in case I ever paint a wall). Crayola for the win so far. I'll see about more and bigger ones if they're the best.
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