City Gardening

Let me first start by telling you that my garden is a work in progress (it's too bad we're soon to be moving closer to our churches!). My garden is located in what use to be a swimming pool. Before we moved into this house, the old swimming pool was punctured, drained, and filled in with fill dirt and many other unimaginable things! Last year we planted in this spot for the first time (it's the largest spot available in our backyard) and as David was desperately trying to rotatille the ground, he came across many large rocks, cable, toys, and miscellaneous objects that had been buried beneath the dirt. It's really not the ideal spot, but it's all we have and I must have a garden!

Secondly, here in Michigan, it's just finally warm, so while many of you, are already eating the fruits of your labor, I just started planting a few short weeks ago!
You must be asking yourself, what in the world these are in my garden!! So here is the story. I had just planted my tiny little tomato plants...all eight of them. It was then time for lunch so I took the kids in and was only gone a about an hour! In that time, my hungry neighborhood squirrels had done away with the leaves on four of them!!! They are my worst offenders! No deer in this neighborhood. So anyway, in an attempt to keep the squirrels away, we covered them up and poked holes in the bags so that water and sunshine could get through! It's been over a week now and the plants look great so the little "greenhouse" we created has worked! A couple of them actually came off today. The rest will come off this week as they are not so "young and tender" now.
Above: cucumber plants, the little tiny ones just sprouting up are about three weeks behind the older plants. That's so they all don't arrive at the same time!


Above is my basil, thyme, and oregano. I needed a container to plant them in, and frankly, I was too cheap to buy one. I have two recycling containers so I figured one should be turned into a gardening center. It has holes in the bottom and everything. It's perfect and I didn't spend a dime! :)

These are the hands of my gardening assistant, age 4. She has become side tracked by a rolypoly. I must admit, she did first help remove some of the maple leaf helicopters that have plagued our garden and tried to overtake the little seedlings that are trying to pop through.