We've had a Marigold and Petunia explosion out in front of our place. We've been getting a decent amount of rain, and haven't needed to do much watering. The flowers we planted in early May are doing well. Due to the amount of rain we got, the shepherd's hook that the hanging baskets were on started to lean. I had to move it and drive it deeper into the ground once the soil dried out. As you can see from the picture's above and below, the Petunia's are taking over. They're eating the Marigolds and climbing up the bushes. In the center of the picture above, you may also notice the single white Lily that came up out of nowhere. It must be a remnant from previous year's plantings. Our neighbors(the good ones on the North side of us), spread some mulch out in front of their place, and extended it over to ours. It's sort of a mutual flower bed. The flowers we planted extended out into their bed.

In the back, my container garden is making progress. I think some of the seeds got washed out of my upside down tomato container. I planted three seeds in each of the three holes, but only got three plants growing out of one hole, and none in the others. I did a transplant and moved each of the three sprouts to it's own hole. They're not growing fast, but I'm not expecting this thing to do much of anything productive. It was a failure last year.

Our Meyer Lemon Tree is enjoying the outdoors. It even has a few new flowers growing on it.

The Gypsy Pepper plant is doing well, and producing a few peppers. I need to find out when I can pick them.

The charlie brown tomato plant is also doing well. It's just growing for now, and isn't working on producing tomatoes yet.

The Celosia is looking nice. Note the Black Seeded Simpson lettuce growing between the plants. I'm not planning to eat this. It was really just to fill the space and add some more green to the container.

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A few days ago I was out of town for the start of the Hilliard Farmer's Market. Amber made it over there and got some local goodies for us to eat, including eggs from Oink Moo Cluck Farms, chèvre from the Blue Jacket Dairy, lettuce, strawberries, and some chocolate cupcakes.

Last weekend I finally got around to getting my patio container garden all set up. Since this patio is not completely fenced in like the one I was using last Summer, I wasn't as free to put my plants in junk(Rubbermaid bins)(link to last year's garden). The back side of the patio faces another building of condos, and there's an old lady back there who apparently has nothing better to do than complain about what the neighbors do that isn't "to code". Actually, I can't say that I blame her, as many of our neighbors have really trashy looking patios. Not being able to use my Rubbermaid bins, which I still have, I had to reduce the amount of planting I did, and also had to pretty up the containers I used. Some are reused from last year, two are new(bad me for buying new), and the rest are pots that Amber had laying around.

My tomato plant did really well last year in the self watering container I made out of a rubbermaid bin. Since the unsightly storage bins were out of the question, I got a large pot which I converted into a self watering container. I used the same technique that I did last year, and it appears to be working to keep the soil moist. Since I was bad and bought a new pot rather than finding a used one, I decided that I should at least purchase my tomato plant from the nursery around the corner from us, rather than from some big box store far away. Unfortunately, I got there a bit late in the season, and their supply of tomato plants had dwindled. As a result I ended up buying a tomato plant that reminded me of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Hopefully it thrive in the container I constructed for it. The plant is a "Celebrity" tomato, which is only supposed to get 30-48 inches tall. Last year's plant outgrew the bin and cage it was in, so hopefully this one will fit a little better. It's supposed to be "ideal for patio growing."

Also in the pot are some herbs I bought from my future niece, who was selling them for/through her school. On the left is Rosemary, on the right Sage. They're supposed to get bigger, so hopefully they wont compete too much for space with the tomato. The wilted thing behind the tomato is Oregano. It was cooked in the sun out on the patio before I had a chance to plant it. Despite its dead appearance, I decided to plant it anyway, hoping that some part of it may spring back to life. If not, well that means more room for the tomato to grow.

Last year I attempted to grow zucchini in this pot. The zucchini only flowered, and never produced. This year I used the same pot, and same self watering design for a Green Bell Pepper plant.

I also reused the home depot paint bucket from last year, again as a self watering container. Last year I grew a Green Bell Pepper plant in it. This year I'm growing Gypsy Peppers in it. To make it a little more presentable, I painted the outside of the bucket so it wouldn't be so offensively orange. The three stacked pots in the back contain more herbs. Chives, Parsley, and Sage.

Another one of the new pots has our Meyer Lemon Tree. This was a bridal shower gift from one of Amber's friends. We liked theirs so much they got us one of our own. It will come inside once the weather gets cooler.

I'm going to try the upside down tomato plant again. It died last year once I hung it upside down. The seeds have been planted. I'm going to let it grow more this time before I flip it upside down. The other pots in this picture will eventually be hung up on the fence, but I'll wait until the plants start growing. The two pots on the right will be cilantro, and the pot on the left will be mint.