We are growing WATERMELONS!

Discovered 2 watermelon sprouts today while we were watering! We also noticed a 3rd squash spouting today!

So we now have 5 cucumber plants, 3 squash plants, and 2 watermelon plants. We are still waiting to see if we get any peppers or pumpkin plants to grow.

Trent is still thinking we will have a watermelon to eat by July 4th!

The Overstreets have a "Garden in a Bucket"

On Thursday, Trent and Ella helped me plant cucumbers, peppers, and squash in a set of buckets. We also planted watermelons and pumpkins in the corner of our backyard! We will see how it goes. I will try to update often to let you know the progress our our vegetable patch.

I was amazed at how quickly things started spouting! The packet said 7-10 days for most of the seeds but the cucumbers sprouted on Tuesday and the sqush sprouted today.

The squash sprouts are hard to see...there's one right under the nameplate and one down near the bottom left hand corner (it looks like a bigger white rock).

A Quick View of My Plants for Mom

I know my mom gets a little antsy not being able to look in on my flower beds since she moved to Atlanta so I thought I would give a little photo update to show her that everything is just growing wonderfully. I also noticed on Saturday how beautiful my gardenia looked outside of Ella's window so I wanted to show it off.

Look at the new growth on my holly! Wow, I have to say I think I'm doing a great job...actually, my highly acidic soil helps a lot. :-)


This is my favorite plant in my yard because it has a story (I LOVE things that have a story!). Until my wedding day I had no idea what a gardenia was. I had 2 gigantic gardenias in my bridal bouquet and I've fallen in love with their wonderful scent. My mom gave this to me for my birthday (upon my asking for it...I do ask for weird things for my birthdays) the year Ella was born and I had her plant it right outside of Ella's window so I could rock my baby girl and look at my beautiful plant. However, as of Saturday, the story no longer stops there.
Four year-olds are truly at a wonderful age. Developmentally they are starting to understand so many more complex ideas, two of them being how plants grow and life cycles. On Saturday, the gardenia caught Ella's attention for the very first time. She has noticed the green plant several times when we've been outside working in the beds, but on Saturday she saw the flowers and was so excited. "Mommy, look! That plant can make flowers!" She also noticed that some of the flowers were "dirty" so we had to talk about how the flowers die. She made the comment "Of course Mommy! They have to die so more flowers can grow!" Well, duh mom.
We then got to talk about how that plant got there (so I could rock Baby Ella and admire it) and she proceeded to tell me that "Her Flowers" were now 4 years old, too. I continue to love my-oops, I mean Ella's-gardenia and will now have to figure out a way to transplant it whenever we decide to finally move. Who knows, maybe someday I will be able to give it to my Baby Ella so she can sit and rock her baby and look at "Her Flowers."

PURSON...what a great gift! And you thought it was a weird gift for me to pick out.

So enough of the mushy sentimental stuff. Here are a few more pictures for Mom to check.

Day Lilies...gorgeous! How I ended up with one set of yellow and the rest maroon???

Mom, what's this? I'm pretty sure that it's not a weed.

Another beautiful holly...look at that new growth!


So that's a quick view of my flower beds for my mother. Everything's going well.

For my "Gardener"...a check of the front yard

As some of you know, my Mom took on the time consuming job of becoming my "gardener" when we moved into our house in 2001. I am not by any means a GREEN THUMB. And now that she is living in Atlanta I know that she worries about the status of my yard - especially the flower beds surrounding my house. So in order to put her worries to rest I would like to share a few pictures so she (and the rest of the online community, for that matter) can see how well I've been doing since their departure earlier this year.

I have been sure to water each of the plants on a fairly regular basis, and with the exception of one holly, they are all thriving. I have also mananged (with the help of my father-in-law and the "plant book" at the hardware) to treat one of my older holly bushes for a fungus! As my mother directed me, I went and purchased the biggest bottle of Round-Up I could find. So I have included a picture of my dying weeds, that way my mother can see that not only can I buy Round-Up but I can also use it.

Mom- I neglected to photograph my gardenia earlier this month when it was blooming. I am waiting for the second round of blooms to appear and then I will try to remember to post a picture. It is very pretty! I also apologize for not getting a picture of the day lilies in the daytime. It really is a lot prettier in the morning.

I hope you enjoy!