Do I have photos for you!

Okay I've been telling my friend and follower, Kathi, that I've taken photos of my herbs, veggies, and she's always so nice and says, "can't wait to see them!"  So today I was making my absolute favorite salsa and I needed cilantro.  Immediately I thought of the veggie drawer in the fridge where my Wal-Mart bought cilantro was bundled and bagged.  But then I remembered, my very own own cilantro was ready to be picked on the patio!!!  I was so excited!  I've never picked my very own cilantro!!! 

After chowing down on some salsa and chips (yeah, yeah, I know!), I knew I had to get my camera out and get some more recent photos of my black thumb garden to post!

So sit back, keep your hands and all lose items inside your computer screen, and let's take a tour of my garden....

 We'll begin on the patio outside my kitchen.  This is my beautiful tall leafy cilantro just begging me to pick it for some homemade salsa!  I almost feel bad using it with canned tomatoes until my own fresh ones ripen!

 The cilantro shares a large square pot with Summer Thyme.  My mother continues to think it's a weed and wants to pick it!  I almost had a stroke last week as she started to reach in to pull it!  THAT'S THYME, MOM!!!!  "are you sure"  Uhm, yes, I planted it myself!  So I rubbed the leaves and the aroma filled the area!  Even Cory sitting on the other side of the patio could smell it!  "Smells like pizza!"  my daughter said!

 You all know my passion for pepperonchino's!  So maybe 2 months ago I special ordered some Gold Greek Pepperoncini seeds on line from New England Seed in Hartford, CT.  I grew them from the little soil pads in the plastic covered containers in the sun on my kitchen table.  It took me forever to finally be brave enough to transplant them to large containers on my patio.  And now I know I need to transplant them to the garden, but I'm so afraid of hurting them!!!  LOL  These peppers are just about my babies!!!  I keep asking hubby to help me because he seems to have a green thumb, but he's so busy whooing the lawn, he keeps forgetting about me and my pepperoncini's!!  I don't want to just throw them into the ground!  I want to tenderly prepare nutrient rich dark soil that is thick and smooth filled with worms!!!!  Not this clay and lyme ridden orange Tennesse dirt!   So I'm frozen in fear to transplant them, but I know I need to!

To make matters worse, I also planted jalepeno peppers!  I've grown these like nothing before with little effort and care.  I had so many jalepenos I was  giving them away by the bags full!  So I'm less worried and concerned about them compared to my baby Pepperoncini's, BUT...the two look EXACTLY ALIKE!  Now I don't know which is which, and - of course - I didn't label them, cuz I just knew which ones were the pepperonici and which were the jalepenos until I planted them in identical matching containers and got turned around!  DUH!  So here (below) is the top view of the same pepper plant above. 

And this is the other pepper plant (below).  They are so similar!  I'm just going to have to wait and see what the veggie itself looks like!   I feel like when I was pregnant but didn't want to find out the sex!   HA HA HA

Ahhhh, onto my beautiful lavendar!!  This isn't the esquisite English Lavendar that I would have liked.  It's the Tractor Supply Store seed that I saw while browsing for a lawn mower trailer tire with my husband!    Sometimes  you can smell it just sitting there or if the wind blows, but if you gently press on the flower, you hand fills with the most lovely scent!!  Oh it's just heaven and makes me instantly want to take a long bath!  I told hubby next year along the one fence I'd like to plant nothing but tons of lavendar.  Oooh and/or maybe along the house outside the bathroom window!

I learned today  that the little cartoon looking flower button on my camera is for close ups!  It helped today when I wanted a close up of the beautiful purple bloom on the lavendar.  I wish I could "insert scent" here. 

Off the patio and out to the back 40 of our yard are my three tomato plants.  Being Italian, I must grow tomatoes.  Now, I really do love tomatoes and want to grow tomatoes, but being Italian, I absolutely must grow them.  My father still grows them.  My brother grows them.  My grandparents grew them.  And just about every Italian person I know grows them!  It must be in the blood - - - along with the wine.

 All my plants are cherry tomatoes this year.  I seem to only have success with cherry tomatoes. 
Look at all the little green tomatoes just waiting for the heat and humidity to turn them juicy and bursting with flavor!!!

 Come on - - - -- turn yellow, then orange, then red!!!!

 Tomato plant #3 has even smaller tomatoes.  Our neighbor with their very extensive garden was very impressed with me already having fruit on the plants.  That was about 2 weeks ago.  Today I noticed her tomato plants not only have fruit, but RED FRUIT!  I'm not only suspicious, I'm also concerned!

 That same neighbor mentioned above gave me 4 tiny seedlings of lettuce.  Cory was out there "tiling the soil" the other day and now I only can find this one seedling. 

 Oh our morning glories are growing just gloriously!!!  I wish our neighbor would finally get rid of her POD!!!  They've been there over a year already!  It's such an eye sore.  At least the Morning Glories will help hide it in the mornings once they blood!  On the other side of our yard, no picture yet, we have morning glories, as well - but I also found Moon Glories!  And I am SO EXCITED to see this grown and bloom!!!!

 When planting the seeds for more morning glories and marigolds my ever anal retentive husband carefully cut a straight line all the way down the fence line and dropped in the seeds with the kids.  It cracks me up that there is definitely a straight line of flowers now growing!  There is some dense areas, but that is where the spring flood washed away some seeds.

 Back to the patio area.  Here is the rock fountain I got for my hubby for his 40th birthday last month.  We love the sound of it, and are starting to appreciate it more now that the cicadas are toning down and not so over powering in decibles!  Behind the fountain in the hibiscus plant my Brownie Scout troop gave me at our end of the year partythis year.  I knew immediately it would look perfect behind the fountain!  We still need to actually plant it though.

Tell me that doesn't look like a photo from National Geographic!  That is my very own hibiscus shot by me this afternoon!

 Lots of blooms!

 These are our $2.99 roses from Wal-Mart.  Amazing, huh?

 Mom tells me this is a giant Rose of Sharon bush!  I had to get up on my tippy toes and still bend the branch down with my arms way above me hoping to get a focused shot without looking!  I did it!  This bush has 100's of buds on it and when it blooms, it is beautiful!

And last, but not least, our crazy mums that always bloom in the summer!  They bloom in the fall, too, but it cracks us up we get summer blooms, as well!  And that thing to the left is the bottom of the chimnea I bought for hubby about 5 birthday's ago! 

Well that concludes our tour of my patio and back yard! 

I hope to update once fruit produces and blooms explode!