...this was my lunch today. Fresh mostly-organic corn from my garden. In a few minutes, I'm going to sit on my porch and write and eat fresh-right-off-the-vine, chilled cucumbers. Okay, maybe I'm bragging just a bit. 

That's all!

I haven't done much blogging lately. Part of that is because I've been really busy in the yard and garden since March. Since that's the bulk of what I'm doing these days--and since it is one of my favorite places to be, I thought I'd post some random photos.

Here is our house. I named it Mockingbird Cottage because of all the mockingbirds that roost in our trees. It's small, but we like it. You can see wisteria climbing up the porch and some day lilies in the front bed. The other plants there are irises that I need to cut down. 

I am a real fan of day lilies. They bloom and multiply every year, providing weeks and weeks of color for very little work and money. I have them all over the place. 

This isn't a great picture, but it shows the long sloping backyard. Gosh, I love it. Sitting on the back deck as the sun goes down over the trees, or at night when the fireflies are out makes me think I'm in heaven. The grass rolls into the woods, which continue for quite a while on our property. It makes me feel like an English country squire. 

Here's the corn--which is almost ready and I'm thrilled. It looks like a good crop this year. I've been experimenting this year mulching with newspaper and straw. I have a reason for this but won't bore you with the details. 

Here is the view you see of the garden when you drive up. I have big plans for making this quite lovely but ran out of time and money this year. For now, you see the trellises--cantaloupe and cucumbers growing in the boxes which I built myself. 

Just in case you wanted to see it, a close up of the cucumbers.

Today I harvested the first of our summer crops--a lovely cucumber. It was really good!

Here's a close-up of the cantaloupe plants climbing. Our soil is really high in a nutrient they love, so I'm hopeful for a good harvest. Sadly, the humid climate brings lots of molds and fungi, though, and sometimes they die before bearing fruit. Keeping my fingers crossed!

Here's a watermelon vine growing out of the cantaloupe box into the rocks. "Hey," you ask, "did you put that drainage ditch and retaining wall in yourself?"
"Funny you mention it," I reply. "Let me tell you about it." 

Once upon a time, the ditch looked like this. Except weedier. Water had eroded it into a very irregular shape.

So, I spent weeks--WEEKS--wrestling the earth. You see all those rocks? Well, they came from my digging. Our dirt is almost entirely rocks with a bit of clay. 

I dug the ditch out and line it with big rocks. Then, I built a retaining wall for the garden. I dug a three foot trench, lined it and then backfilled it with rocks (I'm still working on getting enough rocks). You can see the long grass at the foot of the ditch--that's where my son needs to weed eat and it's what the whole thing used to look like. 

Okay, that's the grand tour. Thanks for stopping by!