Secret Garden

My gardens have been amazing this summer. I've had some fails.  My anemones haven't flowered yet, I planted 12 morning glories and only one is still climbing the fence, the celosia and double impatiens that I planted are dying for reasons unknown to me.  However, the victories have far outweighed all the things that have gone wrong.  Take a peek:

First came the tulips.  I had tons this year.  This pretty pink and white one was my favorite!

Next came the peonies.  I love peonies and the flowers did not disappoint this year.

Then the day lilies started going.  We have 5 different day lily plants and 2 regular lilies.  Our neighborhood bunny rabbit ate one of the lilies early this spring, so that one didn't make it to bloom this year.  The red ones are my favorites.

Finally, we come to my favorite part of gardening, the produce.  The previous owners of our house planted numerous raspberry bushes in one side garden.  They are awesome.  They are both spring producing and "fall" producing, so we had an abundance of raspberries this spring until early July and now the "fall" raspberries have started.  Here's a sampling of the crop:

Awesome, right.  It's funny because we found out that Kirby is obsessed with raspberries.  Every time I'd bring my pickings into the house he'd go nuts trying to sniff them.  Mike finally looked up whether dogs could eat raspberries and the internets said they were actually good for dogs, so we gave him one as a treat and he was obsessed.  Now when we really want to get his attention we say "Raspberry" and he sits immediately.

We also planted grape tomatoes and peppers. 

We have had insane luck with both the tomatoes and peppers.  Our grape tomato plant actually toppled over during a windstorm.  We were never able to get it to stand up again, so now it's literally laying in the dirt, but still producing grape tomatoes. 

For the peppers, we went a little bit nuts.  We planted 32 pepper plants.  We have peppers coming out of our ears at this point.  Mike and I both like spicy food, so we use peppers in everything.  Because of the heat this summer, the peppers have thrived and are way more intense than they normally would be.  We have these little red peppers called super chiles that are so hot.  I am scared to taste our habaneros. 

With all of the wedding planning, gardening has been a great way to relax.  I love going outside with Mike and watering or picking the peppers and raspberries.  BTW, if anyone needs peppers, please let me know!