The first full-size tomato of the summer!

Served on focacia with grilled chicken breast, deck-grown butter lettuce and basil mayo!

Yum!

Like Doom, but with Stylish Cleaning Gloves, rather than a gun!

Much Mulch!

My Mom is crazy about mulch. She believes in piling it high and deep so it doesn't have to be replaced often. Here's some of the craziness that happened today in the back yard.

As my friend @susanlu says: Mulchalicious!

Clockwise, from top left: Just one Bush! The corner bed, the side bed and all of the mess underneath the deck, and the bed under the deck.

In total, we purchased 20 bags of mulch. We placed all 20 and I still need to purchase more! We discovered a great way to use the bags: as liner to prevent weeds. I will never have to weed some of these beds. Ever.

Front Bed Expansion 89% Complete!

Late yesterday Before:
Tonight, After:

I'm in love with it, but we'll see how drainage works. I hope it looks okay in the winter, when there are two fangs out front!

Wanted to share this pic from the farm. Incredible day!

New Kitchen Faucet!

I'm too ashamed of how the Before Picture looked, so here is the "After" Note that ugly back-splash tile? I'm hoping to bring back tile from our honeymoon in Spain to replace it!

New Hostages!

Picked up these lovelies at the Valley Junction Farmer's Market. They are a gorgeous dark green, compared to my lime and chartreuse varieties, I can't wait to put them in the ground tomrrow!

Today, the neighbor boys widened the front flower bed to make it double the width. I am really excited for how it will look when it's done!

Before, After coming tomorrow afternoon!

Deck Makeover Needed!

This morning I decided our back deck needs, as Delysia Lafosse would put it, a "Fixie". I've done some re-arranging, but I just think something has to happen in general to vary the heights of the plants, to better use the small space, and to accommodate:

• 1. A Large table which is somewhat cumbersome to move.
• 2. Deck stairs which face the wrong way for our needs.
• 3. The grill, which we use often.
• 4. Umbrella and stand to provide relief from the Noon sun.
• 5. Antique garden cart containing planting supplies.
• 6. Disasterous, but necessary storage space underneath.

As building on to the deck isn't an options, I do believe I will look for a smaller table as they begin to go on clearance. I'm also interested in adding or moving the steps, as the current configuration doesn't allow for easy access to the water spigot.

Do you know of anyone who specializes in making decks less ugly? Suggestions on how I could make mine more appealing?

Chocolate Mint

My Mom and I have been picking on my Chocolate Mint plant every time we walk by tonight. This one has been voracious all summer, it needs constant drenching due to the metal envelope and all of the wind our deck receives. It seems to be thriving, despite the major fluxes between drought and flood. I'm glad it's working out, because it's delicious!

BLT...the L is for Lust

Made BLTs for dinner...I don't care for lettuce on them, so much as I like to add basil to the bacon while it's cooking, and crush it into the mayo with a mortar/pestle. The smell of bacon cooking with fresh basil wilting is enough to make you faint!

Beetle Mania!

Japanese Beetles are eating my Sweet Leaf Basil. I am not happy about this. I didn't know anything about this evil bug, or what to do about it. So, I Twittered it. Thank you to everyone who had suggestions about ridding myself of these destructive creatures.

For future questions about wing-ed pests, the bug-boys at ISU have an interesing site that you can upload pics to, to help identify strange bugs and beetles:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/6/bgimage

What a difference a year makes!

This was a common sight from our back deck last year!

Horsin' Around

I've kinda been digging equine decor of late. I grew up loving the book "Black Beauty", and I think every child should read it, to gain empathy for animals, especially creatures of burden, which are hard to relate to if you are brought up in an urban setting.

Our dining room overlooks a farm that has four horses, and I have seen several fox in the last year. I have been collecting equestrian-themed items, but I'm not sure anyone appreciates this but me. Thoughts on my hunt for this dashing theme?

Dutch Blue and White Organization

I love the idea of this collected set displayed in a blue and white kitchen! Great font, too!

Stained Glass Peacocks

I'm in love with Stained glass peacocks. Who am I kidding, I love peacocks in general, so much so that we had their feathers on our wedding announcements! I'm going back for these later this summer, I hope they're still there! I would keep peafowl and chickens, if I wasn't petrified of birdies. And if I wasn't afraid of attracting coyotes into my yard. I'll stick to the colorful, glass variety.

I also like this for a small window, found on Etsy.

Simplicity

Saw this in rural Minnesota. Oh, to have everything I needed in a small space. Super cute, I love the window box!

Troll under my deck

Grrr!

So, this lovely 3-level compost bin has been collecting my plant scraps for about a month now. I love the idea of composting, but I am a little bit scared of what's going on in there. So, I looked up composting and found out I'm doing several things incorrectly. Compost needs:

1. Sunlight

2. Turning/churning

3. Mix of brown and green

4. Addition of dirt

So, apparently, I just have a rot pile going on, not a compost bin. I'm going to try to do better by adding more "brown" and dirt and I've moved it to a part of the yard that gets more sun than under the deck. I'm concerned with the number of drown grubs that I found in the bin, I think I better have our yard treated for grubs. Our neighbors have problems with raccoons (they have had 18 removed humanely) which tear up their sod to eat the grubs underneath. I have never seen a raccoon in our yard, but that's the last thing we need! As for churn, I am not sure if I want to attempt to do that. I am not very coordinated.

The White Line Forms Here:

Taking into account my Twitter-sourcing advise, I have decided to space things out a bit more, to allow for plant growth. There will still be some overlapping happening, but it won't be as pronouced as it could have been. In what is likely to be the most time-efficient thing I do all summer, I spraypainted where the sod is to be cut. I also put some dots in for approximately the middle of where I should dig each hole for the plants. But looking at the picture on the screen, plants will most likely be a bit closer to the white line.

The butterfly bush, which needed a bit more space, according to my flowergirl, @kateschneider Who is well versed in flowers, but actually did throw rose petals at my wedding! : )

More Space?

Here's how I've laid out the plants in the back yard. I am wondering if I need to space them out more, or if they will look good layered into each other? The pattern is repeated on either side of the Butterfly bush in the center: hosta, sage, hosta, hosta, sage, daisy.

The overall effect would be the two side beds and a curved middle bed.

And a Sophie Pic for Good Measure...

Slug Bug!

Found a tomato hitchhiker today. I really thought slugs were something for the East, South and Great Britain. I've never really seen one in Iowa.

Note my dirty finger nails, lakeside manicure ruined in a matter of minutes.

A not pretty page, but comprehensive:

http://www.thegardenhelper.com/slugs.html

Apparently, I need to clean up my act

The Plantening

Last Night, I came home to a jungle on the back porch. @PatzillaYo did a fantastic job of watering while I was away, my peppers and tomatoes are flourishing.

However, the tomatoes were taking over. I've been having trouble with them for weeks--they had yellow branches here and there. I couldn't figure out if I was over-watering, over-feeding. I read some of the pages at Tomato Casual and talked to my friend @Susanlu and realized that my plants needed to be pruned. I grew up with a garden where the tomatoes were left alone to become insane bushes, and not necessarily "optimized" for food production.

But I've spent far too much money on my deck garden NOT to optimize food production. Pots, dirt, fertilizers, bug deterrents...time. I hate to estimate how much each tomato will truly cost. I keep reminding myself that next year I will already have all of the items I need, and will just add heirloom plants from Farmers Markets.

All of the branches that weren't producing flowers needed to go....so they did. It was quite the butcher-session, I felt bad, but it's ultimately in the best interest of getting fruit.

Things look a lot better this morning!

Kayaking

Too Perfect Weather

The party down the way, when GB Leighton was playing.

The view UP from my chair

Jet skis making noise.

From the dock this morning, before a lot of boat traffic

Of the dock. These pics are not re-touched. In.cred.ible.

Happy Fourth of July! More from Egg Fam Vacation

The sunset was gorgeous last night!

It was really bumpy, but here's an idea of all of the boats trying to go under this bridge at once.

Egg kids are subjected to all sorts of torture. Tonight it is bright lights and wind.

Notice what was the favorite toy yesterday-- it's a bobber, for fishing.

Somehow, in the picking up process, this ended up in my bag. Sophie found it this morning and it's become a great source of entertainment.